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How far will Trump go to seize Greenland?
00:26:20
The White House says acquiring Greenland is a “national security priority”
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Podcast Host
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Sarah
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Sarah
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Stephen Miller
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Sarah
Ply brand. Enjoy the go with Charmin. When Donald Trump was talking about wanting to take over Greenland about a year ago, it was widely treated as something of a joke. But now it seems as though he might be genuinely serious about wanting to incorporate it into the United States. We're less than a week out now from the seizure of the Venezuelan president, and we've got Donald Trump and some of his top A's making it clear that they really are quite serious about wanting to take Greenland.
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Stephen Miller
The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There's no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you're asking of a military operation. Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.
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Sarah
So is there going to be a fight over the future of Greenland? Why does Donald Trump so badly want to take it over? And just how far might he go to try and make that happen? Welcome to AmericasT.
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Stephen Miller
AmericasT AmericaT from BBC News.
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Anthony
When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes.
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Stephen Miller
Sir, right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world.
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Sarah
Oh, dear.
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Stephen Miller
Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?
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Anthony
Of course the president supports peaceful protests.
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Sarah
What a stupid question.
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Charmin Advertiser
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
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Sarah
Hello, it's Sarah here back in the BBC's bureau in Washington.
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Anthony
And it's Anthony right next to Sarah here in Washington, dc. Hey, Sarah, good to have you back.
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Sarah
And Happy New Year. Anthony. I haven't seen you since 2026 began.
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Anthony
I know. Well, it's been a slow year so far, hasn't it?
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Sarah
It feels like it's been a long year already and of course, so much has happened. But one of the things that's making it feel particularly febrile, I guess, at the moment, is the fact that Donald Trump has been talking, talking again about wanting to acquire Greenland. But his press secretary told the BBC that his advisors were considering a range of options that actually included using military force.
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Anthony
So that came after Comments that the president made on Sunday night, flying back to D.C. from his mar a Lago, Florida resort on Air Force One, where he said that the United States needed Greenland.
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Charmin Advertiser
Do you expect to take inaction against Greenland? Well, I don't want to talk about Greenland. Let's talk about Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, worry about Greenland in about two months. Let's talk about Greenland in 20 days. By the way, I will say this about Greenland. We need Greenland from a national security situation. It's so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you. You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland? They added one more dog sled. They thought that was a great move.
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Sarah
Now, Anthony, we've heard Donald Trump talk about Greenland before, but this felt really significant because it's off the back of that military operation in Venezuela. That's in fact what he was talking about when he was asked about Greenland. And I think it's pretty clear watching him over the last few days, that he really is flushed with that success. He feels emboldened by how well that mission went and possibly tempted to go further.
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Anthony
Yeah, he's not going to talk about Greenland. And then he goes on to talk about Greenland pretty extensively and then make that joke about dog sleds. And, you know, Denmark is a NATO member. There is already a US Military presence in Greenland. And I think Denmark has shown a willingness to expand that military presence. But clearly Donald Trump has bigger designs on the island than just an expanded U.S. base there.
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Sarah
And this isn't the first time he's talked about it. He mentioned it during his first term. He was talking about it about a year ago, but a lot of people were kind of shrugging it off then as a joke or it was his way of trolling Denmark and the rest of the European Union. You probably remember When Donald Trump Jr. Flew in there on Trump Force One and he had a little bobblehead, one of those little dolls of Donald Trump on the jet. It didn't seem so serious then.
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Anthony
It didn't. It was Donald Trump with the truth social post back in December of 2024 that first really kicked off the second round of Greenland speculation. You're right, he did mention in his first term, although everyone definitely laughed about it at that point. And maybe they laughed about it a little bit with that true social post and with the Don Jr. Visit, maybe not laughing quite as much when J.D. vance went there and reviewed the military base that the United States has.
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Stephen Miller
Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have under invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.
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Anthony
It did die down. There was talk about Canada, which we had chewed on quite a bit on this podcast, and talk about the United States in other parts of the Western hemisphere. Greenland kind of took a back burner. But then with the Venezuela action and the quick, I mean, lightning fast turn to focus on Greenland, all of a sudden it doesn't seem quite so funny or so far fetched.
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Sarah
Yeah. And we had those comments that we just heard from Donald Trump on Air Force One. And then on Tuesday, the White House Press Secretary, Carolyn Levitt, gave a statement to the BBC in which she said, the President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal. And of course, utilizing the US Military is also always an option at the Commander in Chief's disposal. And that was what set a lot of alarm bells ringing in Europe. And we had a joint statement on Tuesday as well from the leaders of many European countries, including Sir Keir Starmer from the UK and the Danish Prime Minister, saying the future of Greenland should be decided by Greenlanders. So that it's up to Greenland and Denmark, not up to the US to decide on this.
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Anthony
Yeah, not ruling out the military when we're talking about a NATO ally. I mean, that is a pretty, pretty astounding twist. And, you know, maybe the, the White House will downplay that and say, well, you know, we always keep all our options on the table. And there had been talk even last year about contingency plans, military contingency plans for all different scenarios, including Greenland. Again, kind of, kind of astounding. But I guess we should talk a little bit about why Greenland is important. I mean, why care about this island? It's the biggest island in the world. Yes, but still an island, kind of remote, covered in ice. You know what's important about it? It's where it's located. Right. And what's on the island.
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Sarah
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And it's for economic and national security reasons that Donald Trump's interested. He highlights national security. I guess it's a better justification for wanting to take over somewhere like this. But he's not entirely wrong, is he? Because you've got shipping routes that go through there that were important in the second World war will become ever more important as more Arctic ice melts and more routes can go through. I mean, it's basically a boundary between the US And Russia, isn't it? Essentially. And a boundary that's opening up. But it's also the point. If missiles were being fired, certainly from Russia into the United States, you want to knock them out with Donald Trump's golden dome idea of air defense. You want to knock them out at the highest point in their trajectory, and that's when they're going over Greenland. So that's where you want to situate missiles, to take out anything that's incoming, as well as the trade and the routes for warships going through being absolutely vitally important.
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Anthony
Right. And then there are these critical minerals. There are resources on Greenland that the United States, in theory, could exploit economically, could have these minerals more under American control, rather than relying on, say, China, which has kind of cornered the market on a lot of these really important ingredients to technology of all different sorts in the modern world. Also, oil and gas reserves, untapped oil and gas reserves there. Clearly, the Trump administration thinks about these mineral resources, these nonrenewable fuels, and having access to them. Of course, the big question is, why do you need to take over Greenland to have all of this? You could build your missile defense base on Greenland without taking over Greenland. You could strike up economic agreements with Denmark, with the people of Greenland to exploit the resources there. There's, there's, there's something more to it than just, you know, we need to have a presence there. There's something almost, you know, visceral about what they want and the territory and have control over the territory.
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Sarah
Yes. And something very Trumpian about wanting to acquire more real estate, isn't there? As you go back to. It's a shame Justin's not here, because he could tell us all what it was like when Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase and how exciting that was to practically double the size of the United States. And was it William McKinley that took over Alaska?
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Anthony
Alaska, yeah, that bought Alaska. Seward, his, his Secretary of State bought Alaska from the Russians, and that obviously ended up being a bargain for them. The United States has purchased other little stretches of property, a bit of Arizona from Mexico. And of course, we've taken other things by wars, large swaths of Mexico. During the Mexican American War, we had a war with Spain, where we took over Puerto Rico and the Philippines. So this is not exactly out of keeping with the United States foreign policy over the past 250 years, but it is unusual in the last, let's say, 120 years to see something like this now.
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Sarah
So of course we're talking about purchases, aren't we? The Louisiana Purchase of Alaska. And there have been White House officials saying that actually that's a much more likely route to go down, that they would be looking to buy Greenland rather than invade it. And Marco Rubio gave a behind closed doors briefing to lawmakers where apparently he told them as well that. That buying Greenland really is the aim and that nobody's talking about an imminent invasion. Certainly one would assume that you would try and buy it before you would seize it.
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Anthony
Right. So the idea is this is a negotiating tactic, a way to pressure Denmark into striking a deal with the United States where the United States would buy it. Which, I mean, I guess in theory that makes sense. But of course, we had been talking about how this giant fleet in the southern Caribbean was a negotiating tactic to pressure Maduro to step down. And there were actually negotiations between the United States and Maduro throughout much of the latter half of 2025. The negotiations took place right up until when they didn't and right up until when the American helicopters came in. So I guess, yes, this could be seen as a negotiation, but I think we should also keep an eye on American amphibious assault groups. If they start moving into the Labrador Sea, then maybe this is going to turn into something a little different.
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Sarah
Well, that's the thing. Is it? Because Donald Trump does tell you what he's going to do. And we shouldn't be so surprised when he does things like seize the Venezuelan president, because he had told us that he had already authorized CIA actions on the ground. He had talked about possibly some kind of land incursion. He had mentioned doing this. Of course, the problem is he mentions doing so many things, we don't know when he means it and when he doesn't, which is why it's difficult to work out what's going on with Greenland. But I mean, you were saying, Anthony, that the US could achieve its objectives there through other means. And that's worth exploring a bit because the only military presence there is in Greenland at the moment, I think is American anyway, isn't it where there's a base.
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Anthony
Yeah, there's a space force base, the one that J.D. vance went and visited. And actually, if we want to get into the practicalities of an invasion, that's something that Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's senior advisor, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, mentioned in a lengthy interview with CNN on Tuesday night, where he talked about not having any kind of a military presence outside of the United States. There was no one there that would resist the United States. So let's listen to it, because I think that interview is really one that's worth unpacking in detail, because he said a lot of things that kind of shed some light on maybe where Trump's mind is right now and where the US Foreign policy when it comes to Greenland is.
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Stephen Miller
I just wanted to reset, Jake, by making clear that it has been the formal position of the US Government since the beginning of this administration, frankly, going back into the previous Trump administration, that Greenland should be part of the United States. The president has been very clear about that. That is the formal position of the US Government. Right, but can you say that military action against Greenland is off the table? Military action against Greenland? Greenland has a population of 30,000 people, Jake. The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark? The United States is the power of NATO for the United States to secure the Arctic region to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests. Obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States. And so that's a conversation that we're going to have as a country. That's a process we're going to have as a. So you community of nations. So you can't take it off the table that the US Would use military.
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Anthony
Force to seize Greenland.
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Stephen Miller
You can't take it off the table, Jason. Jake, I understand you're trying very hard to. Which again, is your job. I respect it. It's great to get exactly the headline right. That catchy headline. I'm trying to get an answer that says Miller refuses to rule out the United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There's no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you're asking of a military operation. Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. One last question, Stephen.
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Sarah
So he's not quite right when he says that there's a population of only 30,000 people in Greenland. It's more like double that. But is Stephen Miller right there when he says nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland? I mean, there is a diplomatic spat going on at the moment, but it's inconceivable, isn't it, NATO on NATO forces fighting for Greenland.
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Anthony
I mean, you know, there's a mutual defense pact in NATO where everyone agrees to come to the defense of one country if it's attacked. So if the United States attacked a NATO member, I'm not even sure, you know, what would Europe do? What, you know, it would destroy NATO. And I think there have been some, including the Danish officials, who have said that if this became some sort of a confrontation, it would be the end of NATO. But Stephen Miller goes on to talk about American strategy writ large for the rest of the world and why this is in the U.S. s national security interest. Let's listen to that.
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Stephen Miller
The United States, this is sort of foundational. The United States is using its military to secure our interests. And unapologetically in our hemisphere, we're a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries to be able to be positioned as an asset against the United States rather than on behalf of the United States. Sovereign countries should be able to do what they want. The Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Doctrine is all about securing the national interests of America. For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle east to try to build them parliaments, to try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, to try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests. With that apology, this whole period that happened after World War II, where the west began apologizing and groveling and begging, I don't even know, honestly what you're talking about right now. What I'm talking about, Jake, is the idea, by the way, you do. I know you love doing that smarmy thing, Jake, and I was hoping to be better than that this time.
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Sarah
So is it smarmy to question the idea that America needs to be able to assert itself and its own interests without apology? Because I think there, Stephen Miller is basically describing what they're now calling the Trump Doctrine, of which he is a great advocate because he's very pugnacious, might be the polite way to put it. But it's a new idea, isn't it, where they're basically saying we can bully our way towards our own national interests within the Western Hemisphere. What we say goes.
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Anthony
Yeah, and it's interesting where he started there, talking about what happened after World War II, and he is criticizing the entire kind of international regime that the United States, which was unquestionably the dominant power in the world after World War II constructed this kind of post war economic political order that had the United States as the central power, but also the United States trying to construct frameworks with other countries and norms and traditions and laws, international laws that would govern how nations related. He's kind of saying all of that was going around apologizing all of that was the United States not being willing to exercise its power in the way that it should. And casting back to this idea of 19th century might equals. Right. Sort of an outlook on what the United States should be doing.
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Sarah
Yeah. In that post second World war compact that you're talking about, the United States was essentially the guarantor of the rules based order. It didn't just follow along, it maintained it. And what Stephen Miller's talking about there is about actually totally rewriting the way in which nations engage with each other. Whether or not that involves some kind of intranatal conflict, or whether it is just the way in which they're asserting their right to do what they want to, from Venezuela or Colombia all the way up to Greenland. It is an entirely new view of foreign relations. Yeah.
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Anthony
And I guess it gets out. I mean, did the United States actually benefit from this rules based order? I think, you know, most historians will look at, you know, the American century, as it's called after World War II, and say, you know, the United States actually really did, you know, benefit, prosper from the systems that it set up. But if you listen to people like Stephen Miller now and Donald Trump, he kind of, you know, has this nostalgic view of the 19th century United States, where it had tariffs and it looked after its own interests and it operated, you know, prior to being this global superpower, operated in its own interest. I suppose, you know, that that was the good old days that we need to get back to.
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Sarah
Yeah. And of course, what it does mean, if you look at it in those kind of hemispheric ways, is if the United States has the right to interfere in Central and South America and all the way up to Greenland, then does that not mean, by the same token, China can interfere and do what it wants in its backyard, notably in Taiwan? And it helps you understand possibly why Trump is so sympathetic to Putin's designs on Ukraine and what seems to be his desire to hand him the Donbass? And of course, it's Ukraine that's making this so uniquely difficult for European leaders at the moment, because normally they would rush out statements very strongly, not just in defense of Denmark and Greenland, but by saying that Might does not make right. That's not how international relations are conducted. But they don't want to annoy Donald Trump too much at the moment. They're just almost possibly at the point of getting a Ukraine deal over the line. So they need to be kind of careful of that, whilst at the same time, they are potentially supporting a view of the world that supports Putin's right in Ukraine. None of this is easy.
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Anthony
Yeah. Stephen Miller talks directly about the US using force and how it should use force in a kind of an unapologetic way. Let's listen to what is really a key part of this interview where he just puts it all on the table and spells it all out.
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Stephen Miller
Jake, we live in a law, or, sorry, we live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world. But are you saying since the beginning of time.
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Sarah
Yeah. We've actually had a lot of questions specifically about Stephen Miller from our Americasters. And Paul asks us after Stephen Miller's public interview. That's the one we've been listening to. Is it once again clear that he and the Heritage foundation are the ventriloquists using the Trump dummy? And Derek has been in touch to ask who's really in charge of American policies, such as the military attack in Venezuela. Is it Stephen Miller?
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Anthony
And there's not much daylight between Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. You listen to Stephen Miller, you listen to Donald Trump. They're on the same wavelength and have been on a variety of issues, mostly domestic issues in the past, but on all of these different issues since Donald Trump first ran for President in 2015. I remember Stephen Miller essentially was Trump's warmup act. And all of these rallies in 2015, it come out and throw red meat to the crowds and talk about the threat of the liberals and Hillary Clinton and everything else. And then Donald Trump would come out and pick up and hit on the same themes in Trump sort of way. But Miller obviously, and we've talked about him before, and we actually had a podcast about him in particular last year. But Miller's a key player in this White House. And it's not just Stephen Miller, it's actually his wife to Katie Miller, who was a Trump official in the first White House and now as a conservative podcaster. And she was the one who started all of this latest round of Greenland talk. Off she Posted Shortly after the U.S. attack, the U.S. raid in Venezuela. On social media, a picture of Greenland with a big American flag. Colored an American flag on the map. Just with the message soon.
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Sarah
Yeah, because the thing about Stephen Miller and his wife is they're not. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but they don't have Donald Trump's subtlety. Now, that's not what he's famous for. But when you get this belligerent rhetoric from Donald Trump, it's often leavened with a bit of humor or there's a sort of ride sense for himself. He has. Stephen Miller is just absolutely hard line with the kind of brutal and aggressive rhetoric all the time, isn't he? Whether that's on immigration, which is his big, big topic, and border security, and now moving into foreign relations as well. He can come across as sounding really rather rabid when you hear him being interviewed. Although actually, as you say, Anthony, if you break down what he's saying in policy terms and then look at what Donald Trump's doing, there's not that much space between them.
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Anthony
Right. On immigration, it was Miller in the middle of last year who was really pushing the Homeland Security Department and the immigration enforcement to do more deportations. There were reports of a White House meeting where he said he could go down onto the streets of D.C. and round up 100 undocumented migrants in a matter of minutes. And then shortly after that was when you saw the enforcement really step up, the use of National Guard to kind of back up enforcement, particularly in D.C. where they were rounding up people from the streets of D.C. and deporting them or putting them into detention camps prior to, to deportation. But I think Stephen Miller's an interesting character and he is definitely influential in this White House. And yes, he does have more of an edge than Donald Trump does, but they are both practicing the same policies. And I went back and looked and see if there was any talk in the Heritage foundation, the project 2025, about, about Greenland directly. And there wasn't. There was broader geopolitical strategy in the Project 2025, which the Heritage foundation put together. But this was Donald Trump and this is Donald Trump. And now this is Stephen Miller backing up Donald Trump who started talking about Greenland at the very first. Now Miller is giving that edge and that hardness to the policy, which is kind of his role.
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Sarah
Yeah. And also is it fair to say about him that not only does he come with some pretty hard lines, ideas and is able to shape the policy as to how to get those ideas into place. He's pretty much an enforcer in terms of getting it done as well. And that his title of deputy chief of staff in the White House maybe doesn't do justice to just quite how much power he has because he's not only devising these policies, he is making sure that they happen.
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Anthony
Yeah, he's been around, as I mentioned, for a long time in Trump's orbit. He's a survivor in a world, a Donald Trump world, where survivors, there aren't too many of them, not too many who have been there since the very. And deputy chief of staff actually is a really important role. I mean, the chief of staff, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who we have also talked about, very important in coordinating and having access to the president and making sure everyone's on the same page. The deputy chief of staff is kind of the policy whip that makes sure that things get done and that policies are advancing. So it is a perfect role for him in this White House and one that he seems to be, you know, successful at, very, you know, flourishing at.
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Sarah
Yeah. And the idea of whether we're now facing a new world order is something obviously we're going to be unpacking over the next few weeks, but we should leave it there for now and just say bye bye.
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Podcast Host
Thank you for listening to another episode. It is you, the ameracaster that makes ameracast the community that it now is. If you like what you've heard, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. We always want to hear your feedback as well. We look at every single bit of correspondence that we get so you can send us an email. AmericaSTBC.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved in the AmericaST Discord server. The link to that is in the description. Till next time. Bye bye.
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