Earlier this year, the Trump administration raised eyebrows and inspired scoffs when it announced it wanted to buy Greenland. Since then, the government has ignored the laughs and continued to pursue its stated objective. Now, a new report from a Danish news outlet alleges that multiple Americans with direct ties to Trump have been engaged in covert “influence operations” aimed at Greenlanders. The purpose of these propaganda efforts is to sow division between the Nordic territory and its parent country, Denmark, those with knowledge of the operations told reporters.
The covert efforts were originally reported by Denmark’s public broadcaster, DR, which revealed on Wednesday that three American men “with ties to US President and the White House” had been “active in Greenland for a long time through various networks and contacts.” The report claims that these men have been engaged in a variety of activities, including compiling a list of Greenlanders who are sympathetic to the U.S., while also making a list of people who had expressed criticism of Trump. The men were also alleged to be collecting stories from Greenlanders about Denmark that could be used to portray the country “in a bad light in American media,” the Associated Press writes, citing the original report. The Washington Post, similarly citing DR, says that two of the men are alleged to have previously worked for Trump.
The Danes are pissed. If you travel to DR’s homepage right now, you’ll find wall-to-wall coverage of the scandal. The story has since been picked up by several prominent American outlets, and now, America’s top diplomat in Denmark has been summoned to speak with the nation’s government officials, as fallout from the scandal roils international news. Additionally, Danish officials have come out publicly to comment on the allegations.
“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland and its position in the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters. “It is therefore not surprising if we experience outside attempts to influence the future of the Kingdom in the time ahead.” He added: “Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom will, of course, be unacceptable. In that light, I have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the U.S. chargé d’affaires for a meeting at the Ministry.”
Denmark’s intelligence agency, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, has also taken the unusual step of commenting on the incident, noting that “particularly in the current situation, Greenland is a target for influence campaigns of various kinds.” Those campaigns could be targeted at pitting Denmark and Greenland against each other and could be accomplished by “exploiting existing or fabricated disagreements, for example in connection with well-known individual cases, or by promoting or amplifying certain viewpoints in Greenland regarding the Kingdom, the United States, or other countries with a particular interest in Greenland,” the agency said.
Despite the Trump administration’s badgering about a sale of its territory, Danish officials have repeatedly made it clear that Greenland is not for sale. In response to these dismissals, Trump previously went full Andrew Jackson and said he wouldn’t rule out military force as a means of acquiring the territory. In May, a Wall Street Journal report also claimed that the administration was ramping up spying efforts aimed at Denmark and Greenland. U.S. intelligence was reportedly ordered to use surveillance satellites, wiretaps, and human operators to gather information about the Nordic nation and its territory.
Why does Trump want to buy Greenland so badly? The answer may be complicated. Trump, himself, has said that America needs the territory for “national security and even international security,” which is not a particularly unconventional explanation. However, as we have previously reported, the Network State movement—a weird political movement with ties to Trump—has also expressed interest in purchasing Greenland and using it to trial its techno-colonization efforts. Network Staters want to build their own privately-owned, cryptocurrency-powered cities, and they see the Nordic territory as a great test-bed for that effort. Dryden Brown, the CEO of the Network State-linked Praxis project, has even claimed that the Trump administration’s acquisition of Greenland is part of his movement’s broader “plan.”
At the same time, businesses backed by prominent Silicon Valley tycoons (some of whom have been tied to the Network State folks) have also expressed interest in Greenland as a source of raw materials that could be used to power the blossoming AI industry. The Trump administration has also reportedly floated paying Danish citizens a UBI-like stipend (funded, presumably, by the American taxpayer) in an effort to justify the land-grab.
In short: Very few people want this to happen, but the ones who do have a lot of money and power, and they don’t like hearing the word “no.” Given this context, the recent propaganda allegations aren’t all too surprising since, when it comes to Trump’s indecent proposal, Greenlanders clearly need some convincing. Polls have consistently shown that only a fractional portion of the territory’s population has even the faintest glimmer of interest in being owned by the U.S.
