Greenland has long fascinated U.S. policymakers. From 19th-century diplomatic overtures to Trump’s 2019 proposal to buy the island, the idea persists that Greenland’s mineral wealth holds strategic promise. Politicians like Senator Ted Cruz and Vice President J.D. Vance championed Greenland’s “vast reserves” of rare earth elements. Trump, more direct, claims control over Greenland is vital to checking Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic.
Yet experts argue these aspirations are fueled more by geopolitics and stock market hype than sound economic reasoning. As Tracy Hughes of the Critical Minerals Institute bluntly states, “The hype far outstrips the hard science and economics behind these critical minerals.”
Greenland’s mineral riches exist at least on paper. But geography is not on its side. With 80% of the island buried under an ice sheet and much of the rest made inaccessible by mountainous terrain and fjords, simply reaching potential deposits is an enormous challenge.
“There are few roads and no railways. Everything has to be flown or shipped in,” says Diogo Rosa, a geologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Any mining project would require building transportation infrastructure from scratch and generating power locally in a region with extreme weather and limited human resources.
Moreover, Greenland’s rare earths are primarily found in eudialyte, a complex mineral for which no economically viable extraction process has ever been developed. Unlike the more common carbonatites used for production elsewhere, eudialyte remains a technological hurdle. “Even if we access it, we don’t know how to make it profitable,” explains rare earth expert David Abraham.
Even if the geology could be overcome, environmental concerns present another major obstacle. Extracting rare earths typically involves toxic chemicals and generates radioactive byproducts, especially uranium. In 2021, Greenland’s government passed legislation effectively banning mines with uranium content exceeding a threshold level.
The rationale is grounded in experience. Earlier mining operations left long-lasting pollution that has seeped into Arctic food chains. “We found elevated levels of pollutants in everything from lichens to fish and spiders,” says Anne Merrild, head of sustainability at Aalborg University. Recovery is slow in Greenland’s fragile, cold ecosystem, and locals are still grappling with the legacy.
Culturally, mining raises difficult questions. Greenlanders, who own land collectively under government administration, have historically been wary of granting foreign companies access to large swathes of land. “People see [mining] as an opportunity,” Merrild says, “but they want to be part of the planning, the ownership, and the oversight from the beginning.”
Some proponents argue that Greenland has strategic military importance, potentially enabling control over emerging Arctic shipping lanes. However, these arguments also fall short under scrutiny.
Greenland already hosts the U.S.-operated Pituffik Space Base and has long allowed U.S. military operations under Danish cooperation. For decades, Denmark has supported American strategic goals without needing to relinquish sovereignty. Analysts warn that pushing to seize Greenland would only alienate Denmark, one of the U.S.’s most steadfast allies.“It would be geopolitically disastrous,” says analyst Peter Zeihan. “There’s nothing we would get from direct control that we don’t already have except the headache of managing a remote, inhospitable territory.”
Meanwhile, the notion that Greenland could serve as a launching pad for Arctic naval dominance is highly impractical. The island lacks deepwater ports, and its ice-filled waters aren’t conducive to conventional maritime infrastructure. “To project military power from Greenland, you’d need a logistics operation on the scale of a moon landing,” Zeihan adds.
With mineral demand rising, especially for clean energy technologies like EVs and wind turbines, the drive to diversify rare-earth supply chains is real. But Greenland is not likely to help anytime soon. Most mining projects are in purely exploratory stages, with commercial production years or decades away.
Meanwhile, countries such as Australia, Canada, and the U.S. itself host more accessible, better-studied, and economically viable mineral projects. MP Materials, the operator of the only rare earths mine in the U.S., and Texas-based Noveon Magnetics, are already producing thousands of metric tons of magnets annually.
“Greenland is interesting, but we’re better off investing in companies with proven track records and infrastructure already in place,” says Noveon’s CEO, Scott Dunn.
The reality is that 90% of the world’s rare-earth processing is currently conducted in China. That bottleneck won’t be broken by betting on unproven fields in inaccessible terrain. Instead, experts recommend boosting partnerships with allied nations and investing in processing and recycling technologies already available at home.
None of this is to say that Greenland lacks mineral wealth. With a geological history stretching back billions of years, Greenland holds one of the planet’s most storied rock records. Its landscapes range from ancient Precambrian cratons to volcanic provinces formed over the Iceland hotspot.
Major mapping efforts by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland have revealed large geologic provinces that hint at mineral potential beneath the ice. However, as Simon Jowitt from the University of Nevada, Reno, emphasizes, “One in a hundred mineral exploration projects ever becomes a mine. And it still takes ten years to go from discovery to production under ideal circumstances.”
Greenland, with its lack of roads, long and dark winters, and community concerns about water pollution and sovereignty, is far from ideal.
To imagine Greenland as a mineral savior is seductive but ultimately misleading. Beneath the frosty surface lies real geological promise, yes. But transforming that promise into production faces daunting technical, environmental, infrastructural, and social hurdles.
Meanwhile, the notion of acquiring Greenland, military grandstanding, and rhetoric about seizing control only risk breaking important alliances, damaging Arctic diplomacy, and diverting resources from more realistic solutions. Greenland’s future may yet be shaped by mineral development, but if that future arrives, it will do so slowly, locally, and collaboratively. For now, policymakers would do better to look beyond the fantasy and refocus on scalable, sustainable, and strategic pathways toward mineral independence.