Why Donald Trump really wants Greenland

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Today, why Donald Trump really wants Greenland.

0:21Even by Trump's standards, the letter he fired off to the Norwegian Prime Minister over the weekend was something else. Right, so here's the letter from President Trump to the Prime Minister of Norway. Dear Jonas, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus, be it all caps plus, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace. Never mind that the Norwegian government doesn't actually award the Peace Prize. And let's not get into those eight wars. Trump was on a roll, and he had another bone to pick with the Norwegians, who had joined the chorus of European countries opposing his ambitions to take over Greenland.

1:04Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China. I think it means Greenland. And why did they have a, quote, right of ownership? Anyway, there are no written documents. It's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago. But we had boats landing there also. For Tom Burgess, an investigations correspondent at The Guardian, this missive fits the Trump playbook perfectly.

1:32I think the thing to remember always with Trump is that everything is about the psychodrama. Everything is about who's in his ear, what bit of his vanity or insecurity has been activated. For a while now, Trump has insisted he needs Greenland for national security. Greenland is very important for the national security, including of Denmark. And the problem is there's not a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland.

2:04But there's more to it than that, of course. And for some months now, Tom has been looking into why Trump has become so obsessed with owning the world's biggest island. And who first put the idea into his head. From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus. The billionaire lipstick air behind Trump's Greenlandic ambitions.

2:30Tom Burgess, you're an investigations correspondent at The Guardian. Welcome back to Today in Focus. It's very nice to see you, Helen. And so this is a very fast moving story, so I think we should both be strapped firmly in. But let's recap. Yes. We're talking on Monday after Trump vowed to punish the UK and seven other European countries who have opposed his Greenlandic ambitions. And he's going to punish us apparently with more tariffs, 10 % tariffs from February the 1st. And there's been this mad letter to the Norwegian prime minister. But that letter was actually leaked to an American broadcaster because in public, Trump is selling his Greenlandic ambitions to the American people in a slightly different way, isn't he?

3:07What is he saying publicly about why it's so important for him? He's making points, not all of which, it should be said, are insane. So he's saying a question of security. So as the ice melts, more of Greenland is becoming accessible. Sea routes are opening up. This is Trump, the great climate denialist. But no, never mind. Leave that aside. As we know, not everything he says has to add up. So there are security questions about Greenland that have been for a very long time. So Russian activity there, China has made clear it has some ambitions for the Arctic. And there are some sensible people who say, actually, yes, there are security discussions to be had.

3:49In fact, the security discussions have been going on for decades. The Americans have had a place there. So that's one of Trump's lines. to the American people is we need Greenland for our security in this dangerous new world. Another thing would be minerals. There are rare earth minerals and we must have them. And now in this letter, he's kind of trying to evoke colonial history and say this European claim, this Danish claim on Denmark is invalid. So on all of these points, the things that Trump is saying have glimmers of truth in them. There is stuff that can be mined there that would be useful for important new technologies.

4:25There are security questions and questions of who's going to control new Arctic trade routes. There is a question about why in 2026 a European kingdom owns an enormous island on the other side of the world. There is a legitimate post-colonial question. As ever with Trump, it's the method. And what he's doing is trashing alliances, trying to bully other countries for what seems to be his own acquisitive psychodrama. Here's a big thing. I'm a real estate man. I want the biggest thing around. That island's pretty big. I want to own it. It's that. And then you get these rolling series of justifications laid on top of it.

5:02Yeah. And he's admitted, he told the New York Times, that owning it is psychologically needed for success. Why is ownership important here? Because that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can't do, whether you're talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can't get from just signing a document that you can't get. So it's a very acquisitive nature, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember, this is the guy who inherited a real estate fortune, squandered it, lost it, series of bankruptcies, and then got to play a successful businessman on reality TV, at the birth of reality TV.

5:42And that is always a way to understand Trump. He's got to be the biggest, most successful real estate guy. Yeah. And Trump's interest in Greenland is not entirely new. It reared its head during his first presidency. And it became a hot topic again within the first few weeks, actually, of him returning to the White House. His eldest son, Don Jr., went to Greenland, handed out a load of Make Greenland Great Again red caps. Here as tourists, seeing it, looks like an incredible place. We've been talking about going for a while. I was actually supposed to be here last spring for some of the stuff I do on my free time.

6:16J.D. Vance went there. I think he never really managed to step foot outside of the American base. The Trump administration, the president is really interested in Arctic security. As you all know, it's a big issue and it's only going to get bigger over the coming decades. And then it kind of went quiet for the first year of his presidency. And in the past few weeks, it's really ramped up again. What's your theory? Why do you think that might be? Well, through that period you've just described, Helen, what's also happening is the slow, steady military buildup threatening Venezuela. So we saw military material, aircraft carriers and so on into the Caribbean, close to Venezuela.

6:51We saw the start of this legally questionable campaign to blow up boats, which seemed to have civilians on them that the Americans said were kind of narco-terrorists. And then, of course, just in the last few weeks, we've had this incredibly dramatic military operation to swoop into Latin America and capture Maduro and his wife and whisk them off to New York to stand trial. And in the aftermath of that, you saw Trump return to this Greenland theme. But it's also America going back to something like the Monroe Doctrine. This is our hemisphere. This is our patch. and we will do whatever we want here.

7:32So after that kind of affirmation of that for Trump in Venezuela, you can see him going back to Greenland. But whereas once he was talking of sort of buying it, and he still is occasionally raising the prospect of buying it, he's also now very much leaving open the prospect of just taking it by force. And it's fair to say that the Danes who have kind of administered Greenland for hundreds of years are not up for it, and let alone the Greenlanders themselves. How have they responded to Trump's most recent proclamations about wanting to own Greenland by whatever means necessary? Well, I think in Denmark, the clearest statement was, if there's an act of aggression from one NATO member against another, the US and Denmark, both members of NATO, the alliance that underpins the whole kind of Western security order.

8:22If there was an act of aggression by one against another, that is the end of it. So that seems a pretty reasonable point from the Danes. In Greenland, the position seems to be there's a strong push towards more autonomy, maybe even independence anyway. I think there are elements within Greenlandic politics. You say, OK, maybe we would rather be with President Trump than the Danes. And you have a range of opinion. But I don't think anyone is welcoming the prospect of American troops marching into Greenland and establishing kind of military control. Yeah, and there was a press conference that I watched with great interest last week featuring the Greenlandic prime minister.

8:56He was wearing this very fetching blue kagool stroke poncho thing. Yes, that number. Yeah.

9:06And he actually made pretty clear. He said Greenland does not want to be owned by the USA. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU. So we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose EU. Yeah, 100%. So whether it's buying, persuading, pressuring, or even the specter of an invasion, the people who run Greenland have clearly rejected that. Yeah. And European leaders are expected to descend on the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, where Trump is expected to give a speech. And presumably all of these leaders will be trying to persuade him against the idea using the usual mix of kind of flattery and potential retaliatory tariffs.

9:50Do you think there's any chance at this point that Trump is going to listen to them? No. I mean, Trump's made his disdain for Europe clear. I mean, just a few weeks ago, you had a national security strategy talking about civilizational erasure in Europe. So he's picking up all this kind of far right talking points. Keir Starmer's been busily trying to build a relationship, but it seems to be one that Trump treats pretty casually. And as for the kind of continental European leaders, Trump has sent them nothing but contempt.

10:32Let's go back to when Trump was first taking an interest in Greenland. Where did it all start for him? I think it's reasonable to say that Trump possibly couldn't have found Greenland on a map. It was not something he'd ever talked about as a candidate for president. And then he appoints John Bolton, who listeners might remember from Iraq, one of the neocons. He pops up as Trump's national security advisor during that first term. And I spoke to Bolton recently. And Bolton tells me that he's called to the Oval Office one day. And Donald Trump says to him, look, I've just got off the phone with a prominent businessman friend.

11:11He thinks the US should buy Greenland. Bolton goes away and he, by his own admission he also knows very little about Greenland but he goes and finds out a bit, finds out that the US has a security treaty there, a kind of Cold War security treaty that allows some US presence there again, some validation for the idea that there are security questions for the Americans about Greenland and Bolton puts together this little team and they do a bit of work there are some communications with the Danes about how can we improve this relationship at no stage does Bolton think, right, yeah, we'll just get some dough together and we'll go buy Greenland.

11:45And then 2019, so the year after this first conversation, it comes out in the Wall Street Journal that Trump has this interest. And the Danes react, they're appalled. Trump posts a kind of Photoshop picture of an enormous golden Trump tower over a Greenland village and says, I promise not to do this to Greenland. It was funny at the time. It was so ludicrous. It was so ludicrous, yeah. But one person who didn't think it was ludicrous was the person who had sowed that seed in Trump's head Ronald Lauder old friend of Trump's and Bolton explains John Bolton the National Security Advisor at the time he explains that this businessman who had had this conversation with Trump who had put this idea in his head was Lauder Bolton then speaks to Lauder Lauder discusses this a bit more this plan he has this suggestion he has that the US should buy Greenland and that seems to be the seed from which everything else has grown Ronald Lauder I've never heard of him.

12:43Have you heard of Estee Lauder? I have. Now the next generation in skincare, Estee Lauder's new age-controlling cream. I think I have some of their makeup in my makeup bag today. Anyone who's ever been to Boots, I think, has probably heard of Estee Lauder, this global cosmetics brand. Free with any Estee Lauder purchase of$6.50 or more. Ronald Lauder, he's one of the heirs to that fortune. he first came across Trump, crossed paths with Trump, it seems in the 1960s. They were both, I don't think quite the same time, but they both passed through a business school in Pennsylvania. So that relationship is 60 years old.

13:22Lauder works for Estee Lauder for a long time. And then he starts to get political positions. So he's a billionaire by, you know, inheritance. And Ronald Reagan in the 80s gives him a job in the Pentagon as an undersecretary in the defense department. curiously enough, dealing with NATO. Okay. And he goes, he's made ambassador to Austria, which, you know, in those Cold War years is a crucial, really important job. That's kind of like where the Soviet Union meets the West. And then he wants to be mayor of New York. Ronald Lauder will be the change New York needs. Ronald Lauder backs the death penalty in mandatory life jail terms.

14:00So he runs for Republican mayor of New York, spends an enormous packet of his own money on that. Ronald Lauder backs tough ethics in government laws because as a businessman, Ronald Lauder knows New York can run without corruption, fraud and cronyism. And loses to Rudy Giuliani. OK. And then Lauder pops up after Trump has won. He's a Republican donor for a long time. But after Trump wins in that 2016 election, Lauder donates$100 ,000 to the Trump Victory Fundraising Committee. And had they stayed close throughout the decades? It's not entirely clear how that relationship, how close that relationship is.

14:43So two Nepo babies, right, in New York? Yeah. They're two rich kids from New York. That's a world in which they would encounter each other a lot. But they're obviously close enough that they can just ring him up, ring up the president. I mean, a lot of people can ring up this president. And this is what's so important about this, right? That it's a real window. And this is what Bolton told me, John Bolton. it's a real window into how the president's views and decisions are arrived at there isn't a doctrine there isn't a philosophy there is a circle of rich people influential people a lot of them very right-wing who have direct access to him or reach him through social media or fox news

15:34So Ronald Lauder is the first person to whisper into Trump's ear and say, see that big island? We should have that. We need that. Why don't you buy that? Okay. But I suppose it kind of illustrates at that point how different the first presidency was because he still had people around him who had foreign policy experience, who would make it out as if they were doing what Trump wanted, but sort of squash all of his mad ideas. Right, generals, career civil servants, national security people, yeah. Yeah, and what is Lauder doing? Does he just plant the seed? Or is he doing more behind the scenes in the first Trump presidency to make the idea of Greenland a reality?

16:14So we don't hear much from Lauder for a while because 2019, the Wall Street Journal gets the story that Trump is kind of interested in somehow taking over Greenland. It's reported as like, oh, he's doing this other mad thing. So not much happens on the Greenland front. Then Trump loses, drops out of office. At that point, it looks like Lauder has really broken with him because while Trump's out of office in 2022, this is after the kind of storming of the Capitol and so on, after Joe Biden's victory. 2022, Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, his kind of court, and he invites Nick Fuentes, who is an open anti-Semite.

16:56and Fuentes is invited, goes and has, I think, dinner with Trump. And Ronald Lauda has for many, many years been the president of the World Jewish Congress and he makes a public statement. He joins the condemnation of Trump receiving and validating Fuentes, this raging, repellent anti-Semite. And a spokesman for Lauda comes out and says, look, there's going to be no more funding of Trump by Lauda. Lauda is one of the people who is going to break off funding for Trump. Then Trump stages this spectacular comeback and wins. And Ronald Lauda is back on the scene. Right. So what you get is actually much bigger funding from Lauda over this past year of the second term.

17:38These people, where are their principles? So, well, you may ask. Five million dollars you get from Lauda in 2025. That's to MAGA Inc., which is this fantastically lucrative fundraising committee. It's raising tens and tens and tens of millions for the Trump cause. The New York Times reports that Larder is one of the people who buys these incredibly exclusive tickets for a million. I don't know if you've ever had a million dollar meal, Helen. No, no. I imagine it tastes pretty good. But Larder is one of the people who buys those tickets. This is Trump's second term just openly selling access. Yeah.

18:11This is one of those dinners. And at the same time, Larder is jumping to Trump's defence when he comes back to the subject of Greenland. And I feel like we haven't really got to the bottom of why Larder is interested in Greenland. Only, what, 55 ,000 people live in Greenland. So there's not a big market for cosmetics there. Why does he care about Greenland? What's the opportunity he sees there? Well, as with so many of these people around Trump, there is a geopolitical angle and there's an angle about personal enrichment. What you have when Trump comes out swinging for Greenland again at the start of his second term, he starts to hint like, maybe I'll have to use military force if I can't buy this thing.

18:49That's really early on. I think it's like the days before the inauguration for his second term. And can you elaborate again? You didn't rule out military coercion. Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. I've been told that for a long time, long before I even ran. I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time. He's coming out with that. Ronald Lauda is suddenly in the New York Post with a column saying, this is not absurd, this is strategic. It echoes Trump's point, we need Greenland for security reasons. We need it for all these minerals underneath, and we should increase US influence in Greenland.

19:19He's not saying send in the troops, he's not even necessarily saying buy it, But he's saying we should definitely make sure there's much greater US control over Greenland. And he argues it in a very fluent, occasionally compelling way. What he also says in there is, for many years, I've been trying to build up investments in Greenland. And this is all couched as part of for the greater American good. What you can see in recent months from Danish corporate records is that a company with a New York address and unnamed owners, is acquiring stuff in Greenland. Okay. Now, there's a very good bit of Danish reporting in a publication called Politiken that identifies Lauda as being one of the people involved in this business venture.

20:04And we asked Lauda about this. He didn't comment. So it seems our best understanding is Lauda does have these business interests in Greenland now, identifiable ones. So one of them is taking spring water from, I think it's an island in Baffin Bay, which you'll know from your old folk songs and flogging it all over the world. There's another business venture that Lauda, as we understand it, is involved in and that is to make hydroelectric power from an enormous lake to power an aluminium smelter and that seems to be in an early stage. So there you have Lauda, it appears with a retail venture selling this water and involved in a big kind of infrastructure project.

20:49Now, does he stand to profit if the US takes over Greenland? Who can say? But what you can see here is an overlapping, and you see it again and again around Trump, of the personal, financial, commercial interests of someone who is driving or helping to drive American government policy. And Solado himself has kept completely stum on this matter, has he? He hasn't confirmed or denied that he has these interests, the interest in the hydroelectric power and also this water company. Correct. We put it all to him and he hasn't challenged any of it. Okay. So you could certainly ask the question, which you really just posed.

21:28I think our best understanding is that he does have these interests. And what about rare earth mineral mining? Is that something that he is known to have an interest in? We haven't seen a trace of that in Greenland. There certainly is rare earth mining going on there. There have been moves by American companies and it seems the US state to get more interested in rare earth mining in Greenland. However, Ron Lauder does have interests in rare earth mining, only it's in Ukraine. Okay. Right. So Greenland is not the only place where what Ron Lauder is pushing the US to do as a state, as a government, and Ron Lauder's personal business ambitions intersect.

22:13So one of the most striking elements of Trump's policy towards Ukraine echoes in a way what he's doing in Greenland. It's a kind of neo-imperial position of we want what you've got. Give us stuff. Give us tribute. So he brings Zelensky to the Oval Office and harangues him for not being grateful. And what comes out of that? This kind of minerals deal. Yes. Rare Earth is called rare for a reason. And they have a lot. and we made a deal where our money is secure, where we can start digging and doing what we have to do. You know, the superpower demanding tribute. You must hand over mineral rights or give the US at least a share and a say to be first in the queue for Ukraine's massive natural resources.

22:57And Ron Lauda, we know because he said so, has been one of the people for a long time pushing that idea that the US should get involved in Ukrainian minerals. That deal gets done between Zelensky and Trump eventually. So now that there is preference for US companies to come in and be given these potentially massively lucrative mining contracts. And if you're really paying attention, you will have noticed that this is happening now, that there's a process of trying to give out concessions to mine in Ukraine, potentially very, very, very lucrative. and the first bit of Ukraine's natural resources is a lithium field, lithium, one of these crucial minerals for the tech we all...

23:38Yeah, batteries and whatnot. Batteries and whatnot and things that are going to shape the future. It's an enormous lump of it and it can be mined and it can be sold for a lot of money. In the last few days, it's been reported that a consortium has one right to mine that lithium field. And again, our best understanding, based in part on a very good bit of New York Times reporting, undisputed by Lowder is that he, Ronald Lowder, is part of that consortium that has won that Ukrainian mining concession. So there you have it again. He's pushing US policy, he's pushing Trump in a certain direction and he himself has business interests there.

24:16Coming up, at this point, can anyone stop Trump and his cronies?