USA Wants to Buy Greenland and a Fair Value Price Would Be $30-70 Billion

88 thoughts on “USA Wants to Buy Greenland and a Fair Value Price Would Be $30-70 Billion”

1. Brian Wang.There is also 90% of the worlds,Rare earths metals reserves,on Greenland.Then you have Gold,Diamonds and other mining reserves.Very big clean water reserves and all the fishing and tourismen.Your price so called “fair price” isnt even 1% of what a fair price would be in real life.

2. Greenlanders get $ 9000 per year for doing nothing and have independence to run themselves.
   If the Danes were smart they would get rid of it Greenland and save themselves the 500 mio.

3. I suppose the Dutch have first claim on Ozz as well, so you better start to “prat de taal.” 😉

4. Ok “any climate scientist” not “any politician.”

   In any case, there’s no denying that it’s melting, at a rapid pace. Just google “Greenland ice melt” and you can see satellite pics, measurements, and video.

5. Or the trillions that W spent in the desert … for nothing, apparently.

6. Denmark is furious because US wants to buy stolen land from them, Greenland

7. The US would be able to increase the value of Greenland by fully developing resources and by replicating Alaska development in Greenland.

   Please don’t.

8. In about 70 years Greenland would be a balmy 70F during the summer months. I think it would be worth a lot more than $30 billion. At a $1000 per acre, which is cheap, it would be worth $500 billion.

9. Greenland has it’s own version of the Sudbury Basin, just at a smaller scale. Maybe more than one, but at least the first one has been assayed. Twenty-two miles versus ninety would be about one quarter the resource. Gold plated platinum group metals??? One noteworthy detail is the half-mile of ice overburden.

10. Under the Obama administration, the national debt grew from $10.6 trillion to $19.9 trillion.

11. Print infinite USD buy Greenland…

12. We should have purchased it whe Obama pissed off a Trillion in stimulus money.

13. The “colonial” era of national expansion was abandoned after WWI by the USA. The US had ample opportunity to incorporate vast amounts of territory following WWII, it chose to let them remain sovereign. China and USSR did the opposite, they started expanding. The US has tried to play king maker on several occasions and invaded nations, but it does not ever try to claim the territory as part of the US. It at least has respected national borders and international law regarding economic zones. If it wants in, it buys in. China and Russia have zero regard for national sovereignty and territory of smaller nations. There were lots of things done in the past that the world has moved past and the larger, richer nations are supposed to be the first movers, not creators of regression.

14. Only at first. GDP growth went from negative in 2008-2009 to positive in 2010 and by 2016 deficits were lower than they were in 2008. Bush left the economy in shambles, with deficits in the 600-700 billion range, an a economy with negative growth. Obama passed about 3 trillion in spending in his first 2 years, but after that spending decreased steadily over the last 5 he was in. Then Trump got in and the GOP had full control,then the deficit tripled.Trump managed to so far get an added 0.4% of growth per year, so like 200 billion in growth overall for 2 trillion in added deficits. Those Trump tax cuts have so far been a massive money drain a deficit problem, there has been little growth created by them.

15. BS. Spending increased 13% during Obama’s 8 years.

16. 44b to denmark and 56b to current residents. They get million each.

17. US should buy Russia.  Really, that would be best for everyone.

18. Aaaah nooo I just looked at a map and I’m such an IDIOT LOL. When I saw it, memory kicked in and I realized I knew where Greenland was. Derp. I think what does it is hearing about association with Denmark. And that association got me thinking Russia-Scandanavia conflict. If there was a Failarmy for knowledge, this would go there! 😀

19. Eh, yeah, you’re totally correct, I did skirt over the resources because… well, it just strikes me as weird. I know this isn’t the first time a U.S. president offered to buy Greenland, but still. I suppose that it just seems such a far out never-gonna-happen idea that I’m biased against doing it. So I was being obstinate: guilty lol

    I didn’t know it was closer to Canada, so I’ll read up more on the location, thanks for pointing that out. O.o See, back in school, my geography teacher won the ENTIRE Disney collection. So, when it came time to learn about locations: “Today, we’re studying China! So we’re going to watch MULAN! And tomorrow, even though it’s not Disney, RUSH HOUR!” So that happened. I mean it did really happen, but no excuse. I just didn’t know Greenland was closer to Canada. >_>

    And since it’s closer to Canada, I see why Europe wouldn’t roll out of bed. Maybe Canada would. I would tune in to see Canada throw down with Russian commandos. But, if Russia wouldn’t bother, moot point.

    And next time I remember that anything other than Texas exists, I’ll visit wherever it is I…okay sorry, now I’m just having fun lol. It actually can be easy to forget what exists outside of the places we live. It’s odd, ya know? I can think about a place, hear about it in news, but not seriously consider it. What that place is like, what the culture is like, how far it is from my location. Guess it’s down to mindfulness, hmm? ^_^

20. Nah. Greenland wants independence in case you didn’t read that correctly. With proven oil reserves, they can just get a loan to develop the OIL fields. Greenland would be worth trillions if the ice melted. An Australia-sized landmass located in a strategic area. Of course, we could just evoke Manifest Destiny and take Greenland. Their oil must logically belong to us just like Iraq.

21. Well I guess that fits.

22. I am concerned about democracy in Denmark. Also human rights, terrorism and the rest of the usual stuff used to ram the gates of a marked country that sits on something USA fancies. Denmark, you have been officially warned. Stop hogging Greenland, or you will be assigned to mister Bolton! Yes, that Bolton. They are holding him back on Iran, so that would be a welcome switch, also a relief.

23. It actually does.

24. Ice in Greenland is in fact melting, much faster than anyone expected. That’s not a prediction, it’s happening right now.

25. The BTC millionaires move to Puerto Rico because it lets them escape most of their U.S. capital gains taxes, without giving up U.S. citizenship.

26. Question for Americans who have probably learned more about this than I’ll even bother:
    If the Louisiana Purchase had NOT happened, would the civil war?

27. Well the Tibetan Empire invaded China first. So it was really self defence.

    The Tibet invasion was in the early 600s, so some might argue that this is akin to Italy seeking revenge for the actions of the VisiGoths, but this is nitpicking.

28. 1. Hawaii, 1898
    2. Puerto Rico, 1899
    3. What sane person suggested that there was no difference between the current expansionism of China and USA? I brought China up because both the USA and China like to claim they were never expansionist “unlike those Europeans” whereas any look at historical maps shows quite otherwise.

29. Land area bought by governments has infinite value

    Really? I guess that solves the whole national debt thing then.

30. Note.. It’s quite scary that Wiki lists Chinas invasion as “Incorporation of Tibet into China”. What the…? How is this not explicitely an invasion?

31. US last expansion was 1867, when the USA legally bought Alaska from Russia about *150 years ago*.[1]. China invaded Tibet in 1950. As you well know, China is building artificial islands the South Chinese sea to lay claim to both international waters and national waters of other countries right now. China does not accept Taiwans independence, despite them being a soverign country for about 89 years and keeps threatening and pestering them. China got Honkong back

    Don’t you think there is a difference *right now* between the two countries?

    https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=HM1XXYr0CZDurgS39IGQDg&q=us+territories+expansion&oq=us+territories+expansion&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i10i30.733.5565..5904…1.0..0.167.1569.25j1……0….1..gws-wiz…….0j0i10j0i22i30j0i13.NZVZgzWe1CM&ved=0ahUKEwiK8uvrz4nkAhUQt4sKHTd6AOIQ4dUDCAU&uact=5

32. Just my two cents regarding the valuation: Land area bought by governments has infinite value because it becomes national public property managed by a sovereign state. Time value for governments differs from time value in property transactions between private individuals. Private property is only merely a special case of public property. In other words, all private property remains public property, because private land rights are not absolute (cannot be protected against the violence of a sovereign state as all policies/ actions/ regulations/ laws/ constitutions are temporary and subject to change). Govts. always have the bigger stick. Private individuals die or can be disowned at any time by governments if regulations/laws/constitutions change, but also through the simple process of a lack of inheritors or the effect of taxes which return private property to the publicly managed property pool. On the contrary, governments cannot be disowned of the land they or their citizens ‘manage for them, privately’, … ever, except by violence. Buying to or selling land from other governments, even without firing a single shot, is a form of violence through negotiation. (It would be easy for the USA to find a way to pressure Denmark into selling that land if USA really wants it). It is impossible for the USA to compensate Denmark fairly for the advantage it loses forever. Is 25B or even 70T a fair price? Nope. Never.

33. This would be unsurprising, since land is socialized in Greenland. It can be leased, but not owned. Kinda like the rez here in the States, with similar results. Dependency always corrupts & enervates.

34. Ah, the you break it you bought it theory, but in reverse?

35. Greenland was originally named Greenland as part of a real estate scam.

36. The US already has a large airbase in Greenland (Thule).

37. And if Trump continues to warm the planet it’ll be worth so much more

38. So deep in his heart, even Trump believes in global warming!

39. “As the Arctic ice melts due to global warming”.

    Stop. Just stop.

40. Nothing to see here, move along!

41. He would call it Trumpland.

42. And then buy Mars also, and call it Mars?

43. US expansionism in the 19th century has allowed it to become a power. Changing tack in the 20th centulry – a superpower.

44. You haven’t seen the claims that a warmed up Arctic ocean will be the next Persian gulf/Red Sea with its oil fields and shipping lanes that bypass the longer, southern, routes between the major economies?

    In which case moving the Greenland is like moving to… Israel. Not the best option to escape global strife.

45. Sounds like Washington DC. 75% children born out of wedlock the federal government gives them 600 million a year so they can “Support the Fed”. There are 4 times as many city workers per capital as any other city of its size and that includes federal and state counts. Now they want state hood and to bloat the already bloated government to do less of what they already have. And now they are now inviting more illegals and many line up on food lines. I think we should call it the “Welfare state” on the license plates.

46. If Trump was the super-master-16D_Chess_playing-genius that some fantasise him to be then this would all be battlefield preparation to “compromise” on a cheaper program of a $25B asteroid colony.

    But real life is never that sweet.

47. If we own it, nobody can complain if we melt all the ice.

48. Well, as people get older, they tend to prefer warmer climates so I can’t fault them for that.

    Considering the expected increasing savagery of weather and temperature/sea level rises, Greenland looks a lot like the northern hemisphere equivalent of Madagascar as an Armageddon escape island. Purchasing it before the price goes up might be prudent. It’s not like the US has an allergy to subsidizing island nation economies…

49. I’m not saying the purchase would be nutty, if the Danes would go along with it.

    I’m saying the president is nutty, for a whole host of reasons, including thinking there’s even the slightest possibility of this happening. “The USA” does not want to buy Greenland because everybody in Congress realizes it’s not worth the bother of wanting something that’s not going to happen.

50. This is why the USA is still limited to 13 states on the Atlantic coast?

    I think you’ll find that the USA has massively expanded its territory over time.

    Just like China.

51. Following Chinese precedent, the Russians have a claim on Alaska, so that might not be a good move.

    (Of course, following the same theory, the Dutch have first claim to Taiwan, but claims are null and void if you don’t have nukes so…)

52. Generally sounds like the American south, with all those listed attributes.

53. West Alaska and East Alaska.

54. Surprised all the BTC millionaires haven’t moved there. Weather must not be as good as Puerto Rico.

55. If Greenland fully exploits the listed oil and mineral resources, the government has the potential to make between $742 billion to $1.643 trillion throughout the lifetime of these mines and drilling sites. Calculating an average annual revenue presents a slightly difficult challenge, as the life of a mine often varies based on the resource and the efficiency of extraction technology. While not all mines are operating a peak capacity as of now, in the future they stand to make a substantial amount of annual revenue. Spread over a period of 50 years, resource extraction would result in an average annual revenue of $14.4-$32.86 billion. Natural Resources and Economic Power: the Development-Security Nexus of Greenland (Review of International Studies 2016) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8411/5db35df52bfcc02d45af2515680d97325b80.pdf

56. He could formalize US claims on Marie Byrd Land If he just wants to expand the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Byrd_Land

57. Yeah, no joke, the Democrat run up to this next election is like a trash fire at a frat party. … Which I’d know nothing about, but you take my meaning, I’m sure.

58. Maybe he’s writing jokes for another U.N. speech. >_>

59. JINX LOL. We’re going to wake up to headlines in the morning to find that China made that move on the Risk board while we were sleeping. “Who put all these stationary gun islands around Greenland last night? Chiiiinaaaa… what were you doing last night at 2 AM GMT-2?”

60. I was really hoping this was a joke when I read it in the new this morning. Then, I realized it wasn’t, and I loosed my longest annoyed and discontented sigh in years. Seriously?! Seriously. No. Won’t work (let me be five years old and obstinate about that lol). Will fail so hard.

    The ONLY advantage I could see, is that if the U.S. bought Greenland and Russia tried to take it, Europe might come to its aid faster. That’s a joke, don’t flame me except to admonish my inner troll.

    The REASON it’s a joke is because that area of Europe is, well, a corridor into the rest of Europe! Denmark doesn’t need the U.S. to own Greenland to protect them. What would happen if Russia tried to take Greenland tomorrow? Do folks think Europe would sit on its thumb and spin? NO, dude. Russia would blink and suddenly ALL of western Europe would be there, like, “Hi, Felicia. Bye, Felicia. You can’t borrow my microwave, GTFO.”

    The U.S. doesn’t need Greenland. There’s zero advantage to that for anyone other than for saber rattling.

61. Sure they were, and so did Obama when he was running in 08. It has, sadly, become the most broken promise of either party

62. Greenland’s resource resources are huge and the valuation in the article is ridiculously low.The potential for iron has been examined both by the government of Greenland and major mining companies licensed to develop its resources. The projections for Greenland’s iron ore potential at major mining sites are as follows: 5 Review of International Studies 2016 the Issua site (according to London Mining Company) has a projected “955 million tons of ore at 33.43% Fe”, the Itilliarsuk site with “150-200 million tons of ore at 20% Fe”, the Gronnedal-Ika alkaline complex with an early-estimated “.8 million tons of ore at 25-30% Fe”, and the Isortoq site has (according to Hunter Mining Inc.) an “inferred one billion tons of ore at 62.6% Fe”14. Collectively these four sites have the potential to yield 2.1-2.2 billion tons of ore, with roughly 1-1.2 billion being pure iron ore. In addition to these four sites, there are other mining projects such as the Bugt site (owned by Red Rock Resources) with a projected “67 million tons of ore at 31.4% Fe” and “12 additional sites” with an estimates “158-470 million tons of ore at 27-47% Fe”15; these additions bring the total ore quantity to 2.3-2.7 billion tons of ore, with roughly 1.1-1.5 billion being pure iron ore. At the October 2015 price for one dry metric ton of iron ore, “$52.74”16, the total value of these ore deposits is equal to $110.754 billion-$142.398 billion.

63. Jeff Bezos/Amazon should buy it. $1M to every Greenlander to vote for accession + free Amazon Prime. Amazonia would be a great location for AWS server farms. Plus it would really piss off Trump if Jeff Bezos plants his flag there first.

64. if denmark has to pump 500 million euro yearly in it to keep it afloat, then why bother buying it

65. They aren’t selling and we don’t want the headache.

    Put the money into asteroid mining! Won’t cost much more and will have a payoff thousands of times higher.

    Which is not even to mention that no one is already living on them!

66. That’s a bargain, considering all the resources.
    If the Greenlanders were smart, they would claim independence and then lease the resources to the highest bidders.

67. Right in the middle of the Atlantic ocean

68. I’m for buying Greenland for National Security reasons. But Trump probably wants it for a secondary reason. He probably wants to build a Club there: MAR-A-IGLOO!

69. Like many natives, Greenlanders are low IQ, low conscientiousness people.

    Their government is hard left and corrupt. The two parliament members in Denmark always support the left. The elite is proud and view themselves as victims of Danish imperialism.

    Their society is socially dysfunctional. Child abuse and alcoholism is widespread. The corrupt government is unwilling to help the abused children despite receiving a large block grant from Denmark each year.

    The women are promiscous. The most attractive ones marry the Danish cultural elite.

    The word in Denmark for being truly hammered is “grønlænderstiv”, meaning drunk as a greenlander. You can see drunk greenlanders lying in the street in Copenhagen.

    Just a warning.

70. All a sham money grab. You see anyone actually meeting their goals besides the US?

71. USGS data from 2007 showed great promise in the East Greenland Rift Basins Province, with an undiscovered estimate of 31.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent in oil, natural gas, and gas liquids. D.L. Gautier, “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the East Greenland Rift Basins Province: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet
    2007-3077,” U.S. Geological Survey,

72. The Danes already said it is not for sale. If Trump were actually trying to buy it, he would negotiate in secret until a deal is done then announce it to the world. The way this comes out, it is most likely to score some cheap political point.

73. To be fair, most of the “treaties” he’s killed weren’t actually treaties, not having been ratified by the Senate.

74. Thank you! The common practice of associating the intentions of a government (or a government faction, or a single government leader) with the collective intent of the people of a nation is a major source of distortion of understanding of world affairs, and masks the mechanisms by which things actually happen and can be made to change. “Russia seeks to recover super-power status”. “Iran seeks nuclear weapons”. “China seeks hegemony over the South China Sea”. Try adding “The (name of country) regime” to the start of those sentences.

75. So he does not believe the Earth is warming…but he wants to buy Greenland? No one else see this as fishy?

    I am for buying it. But crank the bid up to $100 billion. I am not against overpaying, as there is only one Earth…and generally our purchases…the ones we kept…have paid off. Every purchase we have made, people have screamed that we paid too much. But later, everyone thinks the purchases were brilliant. Offer to make them a full State. That will attract liberals to the idea because the two new senate seats would be blue, at least for a decade or two.

    I think he is desperate to prove he can make deals…fine.

    I think an offer on some of the extreme east Russia (about the same size chunk as Alaska) would have helped Russia modernize a bit. I had that idea in the 1990s.

    We have burned a lot of bridges, and Russia is not as desperate as they were.

    Denmark is not desperate. They are unlikely to sell at anything reasonable…even if they loose money every year. Greenland is 97% of their land…even of only 56,000 people live there. Almost a stretch to call it “land”, as it is mostly ice.

    More consistent with his persona would be seizure of Antarctica. He apparently likes voiding treaties. And it is an opportunity to use drones to kill all those pesky climate scientists.

76. Right now fishing is the biggest private industry in Greenland; as you mentioned, EU rules put a fair bit of regulatory burden on this industry, and they could stand to profit by being able to switch to US rules.

    This whole idea is certainly unusual, but at least worth a bit of serious consideration.

77. There is a pretty big difference between China’s artificial island building spree, trying to stronghold shipping lanes & ocean resource rights away from the other countries in the region; thus stoking all sorts of potential conflicts with them, and the US and Denmark coming up mutual agreement. If China was willing to pay Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, ect for those rights people wouldn’t be so mad at them.

    And those 19th century territorial expansions are a good part of why the US is a superpower today; the US would be a much smaller, less populated country without the Louisiana purchase, or the lands obtained from Mexico after the war with them.

78. Greenland is almost as prosperous as the US on a per capita basis, and came through the banking crisis a lot better than we did, by virtue of requiring the bankers to take the haircut, rather than everybody else. No, wait, that was Iceland.

    But, still, per capita GDP $41,800, per capita debt $650. Would they want to end up tied to a national debt like our’s?

    I’m not sure what’s in it for them, except that escaping the EU’s regulatory burden might give their economy a boost by letting them actually benefit from those natural resources.

    It’s not a crazy idea if mutually agreeable terms could be arrived at. But I doubt they can be.

79. That could only be an internal issue if one of the major parties was proposing to not run them. A balanced budget has been off the table since 2007, roughly, and they were only pretending to consider it before then.

80. That will be a return to 19th century territorial expansion policy and in line with what China is trying to do in the South China sea and will only perpetuate that. America has become a super power partly because it has learned to curve another path, one of working with other countries rather than that of territorial expansion and it is the best to stay on that course.

81. The history of US land purchases is pretty good. Don’t know if I would call it nutty.

82. Ha! Who needs to buy it? Just build some artificial islands and claim the ocean resources.

83. What internal issues? The investigation is over, impeachment is going nowhere, SCOTUS gave him permission to use DoD $$ to build the Wall, the Democrats are busy eating each other in the run up to the next election cycle, the stock market erased half the loss from two day ago already, so what “internal issues”?

84. Cough…”Seward’s Folly”…cough.

85. there’s no way Denmark is going to sell such a strategic piece of real estate (full of resources and and the center of the Artic route). Trump is trying to deflect attention from internal issues as usual.

86. The fact that our nutty president had another ridiculous brain fart does not mean “the USA” wants to buy Greenland.

87. they should call it right-Twix and Alaska left-Twix.

88. Fare value for land, and then Denmark could tax USA every year 10 bilion USD land tax and another tax for raw materials mining. Fair deal

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