How Trump's Heated Greenland Talk Could Cool Major Minerals Deals
By Jeff Young
In his first term as president, Donald Trump raised some eyebrows when he announced his intention for the U.S. to purchase Greenland, the Arctic island best known for ancient Viking settlements and melting icecaps.
In his second term, Trump seems even more determined to make the semiautonomous Danish territory part of the U.S.
"We'll get Greenland, yeah, 100 percent," Trump told NBC News in a March 29 interview. At the time, Trump had just dispatched Vice President JD Vance to visit the Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. military base on the island's northwest coast. Trump said in the same interview that he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of Greenland.
At first glance, it's hard to see why the president would make a priority of a place with only about 57,000 inhabitants, little industry and land that's largely covered by sheets of ice.
Geological surveys of what lies beneath Greenland's ice and earth help explain Trump's motivation. Maps produced by Greenland's Mineral Resources Authority show large deposits of minerals, including dozens of the critical minerals and rare earth elements needed to make many modern electronics.
"Greenland possesses tremendous potential that doesn't exist in really any other part of the world," Jay Truesdale, CEO of TDI told Newsweek. TDI is a Washington, D.C.-based advisory firm with expertise in critical minerals. "I think it's one of the main reasons why the Trump administration is interested in Greenland."
How Minerals Motivate Trump's Greenland Grab
President Trump's interest in Greenland is due in part to the island's rich mineral reserves. But his aggressive rhetoric toward Greenland could harm efforts to develop the resources. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty
With growing demand for metals and minerals that go into batteries, EVs and other booming forms of clean technology, researchers at the International Energy Agency and elsewhere project upcoming shortages without the addition of new mines and processing facilities. The bulk of the world's current supply of critical minerals and rare earth elements is controlled by China through both its domestic mining and extensive agreements with other countries.
At the two-day SAFE Summit last week in Washington, speakers including industry leaders, U.S. senators from both sides of the aisle and a White House security advisor sounded the alarm about economic and military vulnerability due to China's control of minerals.
"The one nation with the advantage is China," Alex Wong, Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to the White House said.
Chinese officials pressed their advantage on April 4, in response to Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, by announcing export restrictions on some rare earth elements important to the manufacturing of many electronics. With the president ramping up his trade war with China, further restrictions are possible.
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Companies working to develop mining and processing of Greenland's minerals told Newsweek that the island's resources could help to break China's hold.
"This is going to destroy their monopoly," Critical Metals Corp CEO and Executive Chairman Tony Sage said of the rare earths deposit his company recently purchased, estimated to be among the largest such deposits in Greenland. Once in full production, Sage told Newsweek, the mine could supply half the world's demand for some of the minerals that go into many types of technology such as the specialized magnets used in batteries. "That's how big the deposit is."
But even as some companies with close ties to the Trump White House work to develop Greenland's mineral resources, some expressed concern that Trump's saber-rattling rhetoric could make their jobs harder.
"It's not helpful, you know, with those sorts of threats," Sage said of Trump's comments. Greenland is open to further cooperation with the U.S. as it works toward independence from Denmark, he said, but "they don't want to be bullied into doing those deals."
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Kingdom of Denmark Jeppe Kofod told Newsweek that Trump's rhetoric toward Greenland is "very offensive" and "totally unacceptable," and a setback for work to develop minerals there.
"I think they're harming it a lot."
Can White House Ties Lead to Greenland Deals?
Even when he's sitting in a board room in a K Street Washington office, Drew Horn, CEO of the minerals development company GreenMet, still carries the intensity and bearing of a special forces soldier.
Horn said he "caught the minerals bug" while serving in Afghanistan where the U.S. tried to help the Afghan government's development of minerals. After his military service, Horn interned for then-Congressman Mike Pence, a position that paved the way for later positions in the first Trump administration. Greenland's minerals were a recurring theme as Horn worked at the intersection of energy and defense, eventually becoming Vice President Pence's policy director.
After his time in the White House, Horn founded GreenMet as a company to facilitate private capital minerals development, something he said was "the connective tissue that was missing" in Greenland. GreenMet is forging partnerships to process raw materials from Greenland and lining up potential investors. Horn said many investors are at first understandably hesitant about sinking money into operations in such a harsh environment.
"I deal with very skeptical traders, financial guys who will tell me to my face, 'You are a moron,'" Horn said with a laugh. "Arctic mining is difficult."
Greenland also lacks much of the infrastructure that mining and processing require, such as railroads, power systems and a deepwater port. But Horn said he sees promising signs of infrastructure improvements and said additional U.S. backing could speed that along.
"There's a group of CEOs and investors and others that are looking to do holistic development," he said, which could include power production, transport and other projects that the Greenland government suggested.
Horn said his company is in regular contact with the White House and he said long-term projects in Greenland might combine defense and commercial goals.
"We are looking to build up port capacity in Greenland," he said, something that would fit with national security goals to increase the U.S. naval presence in Arctic waters, where diminishing sea ice due to climate change has opened shipping channels.
"I believe there needs to be a new large naval base built in southern Greenland," Horn said.
Drew Horn GreenMet Greenland
GreenMet CEO and Founder Drew Horn, a former Trump administration advisor, during a recent visit to Greenland. His company has a partnership with a mining company to process rare earth elements shipped from Greenland. Courtesy of GreenMet
Last week, GreenMet announced a partnership with Sage's company Critical Metals on its Greenland mining project, called Tanbreez. The goal is for GreenMet to provide processing of the rare earth elements at a facility in the U.S.
Sage said he purchased Tanbreez Mining in the south of Greenland last year from Greg Barnes, a geologist who had been working to develop the ore deposits there for years. In January, Barnes told Reuters that U.S. officials had visited his project to warn him against selling Tanbreez to companies linked to China.
Greenland government officials also advised Barnes against selling to Chinese interests, Sage said, even though the Chinese offer was "way above" the money Sage offered.
"China would never have developed it," Sage said. Instead, he said, he thinks China would have used the purchase to lock up access to minerals in Greenland in order to maintain their near-monopolistic control. "They would have just mothballed it."
Sage said the lack of a port will not be a problem for his project because nature has provided a nearby alternative: a deep fjord suitable for floating platforms. He and Horn both predict that despite the difficulties of working in Greenland, the Tanbreez project will be producing minerals within a few years, far faster than the decade-plus timeline that most mining projects require.
As Sage tells it, Trump's interest in Greenland originated with the Tanbreez project and a presentation the company made for White House officials during Trump's first term.
"Within two months, Trump first made his comments about buying Greenland," Sage said.
Trump's focus on Greenland has been a double-edged sword for projects like his, Sage said. By highlighting Greenland minerals, the president has helped Sage attract funding for the Tanbreez project. But Trump's talk of taking over the island repels the Greenlandic people who are important partners and the ultimate decision makers on how to use their resources.
"They do not want to be a territory of the United States," Sage said. "They just want to be independent."
Vance Greenland
Vice President JD Vance tours the US military's Pituffik Space Base on March 28, 2025 in Pituffik, Greenland. The itinerary for the visit was scaled back after a plan for a more extensive trip drew... More Jim Watson/Pool/Getty Images
Jay Truesdale of TDI said Trump's Greenland talk has helped to "galvanize" the political factions within Greenland and Denmark, sharpening their focus on future foreign policy and the critical alliances they want to forge.
However, he said there is also risk of damage to the close U.S. relationship with Denmark and the rest of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"Many have argued that the attention given to Greenland by the Trump administration has created unnecessary tension within the NATO alliance," he said.
The White House Press Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Is Trump's Rhetoric Making Minerals Deals Harder?
Jeppe Kofod's term as Denmark's foreign minister from 2019 to 2022 coincided with the time during Trump's first presidency when Trump raised the idea of purchasing Greenland.
Kofod met with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and included Greenlandic government officials in the talks, which resulted in agreements for additional support for the U.S. military base in Greenland and expanded economic ties between the territory and the U.S.
"So out of this crisis came actually a stronger, I would say, alliance or partnership between the United States, the Greenland government and Denmark," Kofod said.
Today, however, he said Trump's far more aggressive stance on Greenland threatens longstanding relationships among the three governments. Defense agreements among Denmark, the U.S. and Greenland stretch back nearly 75 years to just after the origin of NATO.
"But the rhetoric coming out of Trump now is showing no respect for that," he said.
Kofod said development of Greenland's minerals will likely play a vital role in the territory's path to independence, providing income for the island to eventually offset the aid it receives from Denmark. Trump's repeated insistence on acquiring Greenland also puts minerals development with U.S. interests at risk, he said. The fractious political forces in Greenland have found a common foe, he said.
"I haven't seen them coming together the way they do against Trump and the U.S.," Kofod said. "It is remarkable, they have really messed it up with the Greenlandic people."
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