Making the Arctic Great Again?

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It was just over five years ago, in the summer of 2019, that the strategic prescience and unorthodox diplomatic ingenuity of America’s re-elected commander-in-chief, Donald J. Trump, was on full display for all the world to see from Northeast Asia to the Arctic.

This nostalgic summer of diplomatic daring started with the historic summit in Korea’s DMZ with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in June when Trump took 20 unscripted but potently symbolic steps into North Korea, and ended in August when Trump spontaneously proposed purchasing Greenland from tiny Denmark, and to thus complete the decolonization of the North American Arctic that began with the Alaska purchase in 1867. It would unify the northwestern and northeastern flanks of Arctic North America under the constitutional protection of the United States for the first time.

Trump’s Greenland proposal was both brilliant and visionary, but was nonetheless soundly rejected by both the Danes and Greenlanders, the latter of which famously responded, “We’re open for business, not for sale.”

Critics of Trump’s proposal were widespread both within and without the U.S. government. A disloyal federal bureaucracy sought to undermine Trump’s first presidency from the get go. America’s deep state laughed at him for his audacity, and in its woke fervour, ridiculed his ambition to broaden America’s geographical footprint and in so doing, to strengthen the very fabric of North America’s continental security. Greenlanders were never given a chance to consider whether being an American state might be better, safer and more prosperous than remaining a Danish (and the Arctic’s last) colony.

I defended Trump’s vision then through a series of publications in news and scholarly publications, as well as a white paper still posted on the website of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Academy. For publishing my defence of Trump’s novel approach to Arctic diplomacy, I was threatened with an unlawful and retaliatory termination by the U.S. Coast Guard by its insubordinate commandant and his coterie of deep-state mandarins encouraging resistance against the duly elected commander-in-chief, including members of his Arctic advisory group that dismissed Trump’s novel geostrategic vision for Greenland as folly.

However, the Coast Guard’s much braver deputy commandant of operations seized on the opportunity to engage Greenland directly with a fact-finding trip to the island, and soon increased port visits by USCG vessels in a display of friendly 'White Hull' diplomacy that was encouraged by Trump’s initiative – and his kind support kept me employed in what Trump’s base describes as “the swamp” (for its very muddy and toxic political waters) for another three years.

With Trump’s triumphant electoral mandate earlier this month and his forthcoming return to power this coming January, America and the world can once again witness his strategic prescience and unorthodox diplomatic style. Prepare for a fascinating, and no doubt, turbulent, ride.

Environmental and climate change activists, critical race theorists and other members of the “progressive” community in the academic world have unfairly portrayed Trump’s 2019 vision to expand America to include Greenland – which America has defended since World War II after Denmark fell to the Nazis – as a neo-imperial land grab against a defenceless native people. But Greenlanders, while rebuffing Trump’s first overture to purchase the island, and thereby liberate Greenland from Danish colonialism, welcomed the renewed American interest that fueled Trump’s overture, which led to a $12.1 million American investment the next year, and the re-opening of an American consulate in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, for the first time since 1953.

Greenland has, over the last decade, expanded its overseas diplomatic representation offices in search of not only investment but support for its movement for independence from Denmark. The first diplomatic office opened in Washington, D.C. back in 2014 in recognition of America’s power and influence, and now includes Beijing as well as Reykjavik, Iceland and Brussels, Belgium (the latter at NATO headquarters), with Ottawa considered by many to be next.

“Green” activists, and other “progressive” scholars in a wide-range of disciplines susceptible to elitist ideologies divorced from the demanding realities of life, have long taken aim at Trump for his dedication to America’s energy independence and commitment to the development and utilization of its own domestic energy resources ( see “drill, baby, drill!”). They're all natural prerogatives of an independent sovereign state all too often thwarted by America’s very own “green colonizers” intent on keeping Alaska’s vast reservoir of natural resources frozen for all time, and preventing Alaska from achieving the prosperity its bountiful natural resource base could easily support.

Even Greenland aspires to the same, courting the energy and mining industries to help develop its own vast reservoir of untapped resources, whether under its retreating ice cap or offshore beneath its increasingly open coastal waters. What the climate change community never understood, or refused to acknowledge, was that Trump’s strategic interest in Greenland reflected his recognition of the profound climatic transformation under way, most notably in the Arctic, as a result of climate change. They opposed the practicality of Trump’s approach, preferring instead to keep Greenland colonized, its resources undeveloped, and its peoples trapped in poverty and dependent on external subsidies.

Greenlanders instead want to be independent, and to bring their resources to market for their own prosperity. Donald Trump shares this vision, and believed becoming an American state was in theirs, and our, mutual interests.

The American people have spoken, blessing Trump’s return to the White House with a decisive electoral mandate, paving the way for the return of his creative, and never dull, approach to diplomacy and the prescience of his strategic vision for the world, as politically incorrect as it may seem to his critics and not a moment too soon. The Arctic continues its historic thaw, and the world is being torn apart by war and division.

Trump’s recipe of peace through strength is not a bad idea for our times. His willingness to sit down and break bread with our rivals is also refreshing, rather than to continue to wage proxy wars and to foster regime change, which only brought endless war. Perhaps, as his second term commences early next year, Greenland can once again consider Trump’s offer for it to become part of the American constitutional family. This time, they would of course demand a seat at the table, as called for in their first Arctic strategy title Greenland in the World: Nothing About Us Without Us released earlier this year.

But Trump has never been opposed to that. As the Arctic continues to melt, and a new and unnecessary Cold War looms north of the Arctic Circle, now is indeed an ideal time to see if the greatest dealmaker of them all is ready to add one more star to the American flag, and help bring Greenland in from the cold.

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