In May 2026, several hundred Greenlanders gathered outside a newly expanded U.S. consulate in Nuuk, chanting “no means no” and brandishing signs reading “USA, stop it” and “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.” Despite that less-than-welcome reception to his attempt to purchase the island, Donald Trump still insists on “complete and total” American control. At Davos, he went even further, saying that the United States “should have kept” Greenland after World War II.
Trump’s Greenland gambit sits inside a larger policy set on revisiting old and settled struggles: the Iran deal, the Panama Canal, and even 1812-era arguments over Canadian sovereignty. This return to nineteenth-century map-painting is a worrying development in world politics. It also presents a kind of politics particularly vulnerable to historical comparison.
Seventy years ago, Britain faced a similar dilemma over access and control in Cyprus. Britain was in the middle of downsizing a colonial empire that it could no longer afford or defend. Anti-colonial politics had transformed Britain’s relationship to Egypt, India, Ceylon, and Burma, while more and more countries were lining up for independence. Cyprus was likely to join the queue as well. Britain had controlled the island since 1878 and considered it a key strategic outpost in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1956, the House of Commons hotly debated whether to hang onto Cyprus or let it go.
The debate was more or less rhetorically closed when Labour MP Aneurin Bevan asked whether the government was anxious “to have Cyprus as a base, or a base on Cyprus.”
In the final 1960 settlement, Cyprus became independent, but Britain retained its strategic position through Sovereign Base Areas. These bases still stand today and went on to support British air and logistics in subsequent wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
This raises some interesting questions for Greenland, where the United States already has a favorable access agreement with Denmark that dates back to 1951 . The United States is fully able to operate defensively in Greenland to support the defense of the Arctic and continental NATO allies. Moreover, Pituffik Space Base provides Washington with early missile warning systems, missile defense, and space surveillance. So, why is Trump relitigating a problem that American foreign policy has solved?
Trump’s Greenland gambit is symptomatic of a larger problem in his policy approach: a fixation on filling gaps that weaker leaders have failed to act on. In January, he said , “we are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not.” Trump is in search of “big wins” along the lines of his favorite President, Andrew Jackson, and is reaching back to a tradition of American expansion built on force, dispossession, and the power of will. However, he is doing so in a world where such victories are no longer the norm, and, in truth, may not even be achievable.
The end of American unipolarity will necessarily see new powers step into its old stomping grounds. Britain’s post-war withdrawals triggered a similar cascade. In Cyprus, Britain kept its bases, but Greece and Turkey eventually divided the island’s future. Trump is warning the American public that something similar will happen to Greenland, saying that if America doesn’t then “Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour.” But it’s simply not true that Greenland can be “taken over” without confronting NATO and upsetting the Americans. Trump has already made it clear that Greenland is a redline strategic interest. The real risk is that Washington’s threats weaken the alliance framework that already keeps out non-NATO powers.
Given its own history of imperial humiliations in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, the United States would be better served by understanding why yesterday’s superpower cauterized its own empire. Britain’s strategic relationships today are best where it read the room early and negotiated its exit. In Brunei, Britain keeps a garrison by agreement without its old claims to sovereignty. In Singapore and Malaysia, Britain’s old defense position survives through the Five Power Defense Arrangements . America has similar basing relationships to around 80 countries across the world, making the Greenland obsession even stranger since it ignores America’s built-in advantage.
Today, the “easy wins” in foreign policy are often complex disagreements over values, risk, and political cost. If Trump is really in search of a failure-proof foreign policy, then he should take Greenland’s uncertain future into account. In Greenland today, most major parties support eventual independence , and the 2009 Self-Government Act even provides an official legal pathway. A more serious American policy would keep Denmark close but also present itself as the partner of choice for a future independent Greenland. The United States does not need Greenland to choose between Europe and America. In recent years Cyprus has proved as much. Since Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, Washington has only deepened its military relationship with the island, most recently through a 2024-2029 bilateral defence cooperation roadmap .
It’s difficult to predict America and the Arctic’s future. That is precisely why a post-imperial strategy of relationship-building and flexibility is key to national security. Yet Trump, in his search for big wins, is actively search-and-destroying subtle strategic options. It’s becoming increasingly clear that “no” really does mean “no” to Greenlanders. The United States needs to re-examine its approach and ask itself what it really wants from Denmark: a base on Greenland, or Greenland as a base.
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