What does the US really see in Greenland?

President Trump has long expressed ambitions to annex Greenland, with mentions of the US acquiring the Danish autonomous territory dating back to 2019.  But the US relationship and interest with Greenland goes back centuries.

In a bonus episode of the Land and Climate Podcast, Alasdair is joined by returning guest and Arctic expert Mia Bennett to examine Greenland’s complex history and connections to the US, Trump’s recent interest, and her views on the reasons behind them.

Mia Bennett is the co-author of "Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic," published by Yale University Press. She is an associate professor of geography at the University of Washington and the founder of Cryopolitics, a blog covering contemporary and historic developments in the Arctic.

Further reading: 

• Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic, Yale University Press, 2025
• Trump and Rutte cannot make a deal without Greenland at the table', Julie Rademacher, Financial Times, 2026
• 'Greenland: Staying with the Polar Inuit. How a secret military base helped trigger the silent collapse of an Arctic world', Ludovic Slimak, The Conversation, 2026
• 'The cryosphere is nearing irreversible tipping points – and the world is not prepared', Letizia Tedesco, Josephine Z. Rapp and Petra Heil, Land and Climate Review, 2025
• The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future, Jon Gertner, Postscript Books, 2019
• Crimson, Niviaq Korneliussen, Anna Halager (Translator), Virago Books, 2018
• So You Want to Own Greenland?: Lessons from the Vikings to Trump, Elizabeth Buchanan, Hurst Publishers, 2025
• This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, Gretel Ehrlich, Fourth Estate, 2003

Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.