Trump’s interest in Greenland is likely to be not only security-related, as he has publicly claimed, but also economic in nature.
In his speech delivered on January 21 at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos, U.S. President Donald Trump justified his claims to Greenland with security interests due to its “key strategic location between the United States, Russia and China” and denied pursuing extractivist goals, because “to get to this rare earth,” one would “have to go through hundreds of feet of ice.”[i]
Trump’s denial of economic interests seems implausible given that the Arctic region is rich not only in rare earths but also in other natural resources such as oil, gas, gold, silver, and zinc, with further large deposits believed to lie beneath the ice. Climate change could soon make the raw materials under the Arctic ice accessible, which has led to increased exploration activity in recent years. Of Greenland’s 2,166,086 km2 surface area, 410,450 km2 are already ice-free.[ii]
As V. I. Lenin explained in his essay “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism”, written 110 years ago, “finance capital is not only interested in the already known sources of raw materials; it is also interested in potential sources of raw materials, […] because land which is useless today may be made fertile tomorrow”. Lenin saw this as the reason for “the inevitable striving of finance capital to extend its economic territory and even its territory in general.” Thus, “finance capital strives to seize the largest possible amount of land of all kinds and in any place it can, and by any means, counting on the possibilities of finding raw materials there, and fearing to be left behind in the insensate struggle for the last available scraps of undivided territory, or for the repartition of that which has been already divided.”[iii]
It is therefore not surprising that, following his speech in Davos and his subsequent meeting there with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump openly admitted in an interview with CNBC that the U.S. and its NATO allies would share mineral rights in Greenland as part of the agreement he had reached with Rutte: “[…] and they’re going to be involved in mineral rights, and so are we.”[iv]
[i] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-donald-trump-president-united-states-america/ (last accessed on January 25, 2026).
[ii] Der neue Kosmos Welt-Almanach & Atlas 2026. Daten, Fakten, Karten. Columbus, Krauchenwies 2025, pp. 101, 468.
[iii] V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. A Popular Outline. Great Ideas, Volume 96. Penguin Books, London 2010, pp. 103 f.
[iv] https://https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1hzn8xi/greenland_mineral_resources/www.cnbc.com/2026/01/21/trump-interview-live-updates.html (last accessed on January 25, 2026).
[Thomas Tews is a German Marxist from Stuttgart.]