The Oligarchs Pushing for Conquest in Greenland

But there’s another element to this Greenland obsession that hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention—and it is just as important to Trump’s designs on plundering Greenland and claiming the island as America’s: money. Specifically, the money set to be gained by the kinds of oligarchic interests that have long backed Trump, and who now stand to benefit from American suzerainty over Greenland. To update another phrase, which we’ve seen recently race to the fore in Venezuela: It’s about looting the resources, stupid.

But even here there’s more than meets the eye. Buried within the kind of crony capitalist network that has propelled Trump’s imperialism is something far stranger, and far darker, than simply seizing Greenland resources for financial gain. It’s about the opening salvos in a world in which any restrictions on American oligarchy—any oversight, any democratic checks, any hurdles whatsoever—are removed, and a golden, pro-oligarchic age reigns, centered on, but by no means limited to, Greenland.

An island itself nearly the size of Venezuela, Greenland is a veritable treasure chest of critical minerals and high-value resources. Zinc, copper, gold, oil, even things like uranium and platinum—Greenland is periodic table of elements brought to life. Because most of the island is a combination of glacier and sere tundra, most of those elements are untapped. But that doesn’t mean they’ve been unmapped, and that excavation plans haven’t been plotted.