Trump donors are drooling to profit from Greenland’s mineral deposits and to build a libertarian techno-city, according to The Lever
Edited from The Lever by Mike Killalea, NSD president
When Trump first proposed buying the Arctic nation during his first administration, it was treated like a joke. But in a phone call last week with Denmark’s prime minister, who controls the autonomous territory’s foreign policy, the president doubled down on his efforts to seize power.
In the “aggressive and confrontational” conversation, Trump threatened tariffs if he didn’t get his way. In a news conference earlier this month, he also refused to rule out the use of military force. Now, Denmark is taking him seriously: On Monday, they announced a $2 billion military expansion in the Arctic.
Though the island is not for sale, the president emphasized Greenland’s importance to U.S. national security. Left unspoken: A U.S. takeover could weaken the country’s mining laws and ban on private property, aiding Trump donors’ plans to profit from the island’s mineral deposits and build a libertarian techno-city.
As the country’s glaciers recede, it’s also facing sweeping climate-driven transformations, threatening traditional industries like fishing and hunting and exposing valuable mineral resources.
These shifts have prompted interest from tech gazillionaires. Tech moguls in the front row of his inauguration, like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, are also investors in a startup aiming to mine western Greenland for materials crucial to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
That company, KoBold Metals, uses artificial intelligence to locate and extract rare earth minerals. Their proprietary algorithm parses government-funded geological surveys and other data to locate significant deposits. The program pinpointed southwest Greenland’s rugged coastline, where the company now has a 51 percent stake in the Disko-Nuussuaq project, searching for minerals like copper.
For more details on Greenland’s mineral deposits, go to https://govmin.gl/publications/minerals-in-greenland/?ind=1568405469774&filename=Geology&Ore%2012%20-Minerals%20in%20Greenland%20-%202008.pdf&wpdmdl=2438&refresh=678ed2e0055d21737413344, the original source of the map accompanying this article.
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