On "Forbes Newsroom," Mike Albertus, Professor at the University of Chicago, discussed the motivation behind President Trump's push to take control of Greenland.
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00:00Now, we've had a very serious conversation about the prospect of the U.S. acquiring Greenland, which I have to say, during President Trump's first administration, first term, it was more of a punchline when he brought it up then.
00:15And he did bring it up in his first term. Obviously, a lot has happened between his first term and second term, including a whole pandemic.
00:23But from a geopolitical lens and from your expert lens, what has changed between that first term and now that suddenly the U.S. acquiring Greenland isn't a joke as much as it is a policy discussion that you and I are having?
00:40I think part of it is this race, this global race for accessing and securing rare earth minerals.
00:49So that's something that's really critical, you know, with the transition to AI and with the transition to greener technology and the minerals that go into all that are really quite there's quite a substantial requirement in terms of the minerals front for those technologies.
01:08And it's becoming, you know, and like I said, China has sort of cornered the market in that and it's done so over the course of the last decade or so.
01:15And so certainly the United States is at a position now where it's kind of scrambling to access a lot of those minerals.
01:22So that is that is one thing I think that has changed. Another thing that has changed is, you know, you mentioned that statistic earlier that, you know, Arctic shipping has increased 37 percent over the last decade.
01:32Right. So that is a that is a trend that is anticipated to increase and an accelerating rate as well.
01:40Right. So climate change is real. And whether you want to talk about it or not, the realities, you know, whether on the ground or in the sea are actually changing.
01:49And I think, you know, states are starting to act in their own self-interest around that as they see opportunities, challenges and the like.
01:58And so I think that that's another critical element that's changed. I guess there is also one third one, which is that, you know, it's hard to entirely dismiss the role of folks like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and the like and tech more generally within the Trump administration.
02:13And there is definitely a considerable portion of, you know, of tech billionaires that are advocates of building, you know, sort of a libertarian kind of zone where they can set up business and and do things as they like.
02:30And and Greenland is in that discussion for them as well. And so that's also something that's different.
02:37So, Mike, what will you be watching going forward? There's a lot of geopolitical news right now, including with the tariffs.
02:42But when it comes to the Greenland issue specifically, are there signals you're going to be looking for from the administration or what do the next few weeks or years look like?
02:53Right. So I think that there are, you know, the administration now is taking concrete steps to try and make this something closer to a reality. Right.
03:03So, you know, there there is an ambassador who has been nominated for Denmark, Ken Howery, who is, again, you know, close to, you know, people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, whose portfolio is dedicated to the acquisition of Greenland.
03:19And so as you know, watching how that develops and how that, you know, the relationship through him to Denmark and the EU develops over the course of the next several months, weeks and months is going to be critical, I think, to seeing where this goes, as well as, you know, what happens with some of the, you know, some of the tariff issues.
03:40Right. And some of the difficulties, again, in the acquisition of rare earth minerals.
03:44And so if that becomes, you know, if the spillovers from the tariff spat with China have implications for for, you know, and create shortages of rare earth minerals, then that might, again, advance this agenda.
03:59Right. So I think that we're going to see step after step after step that's taken towards this greater goal of Greenland acquisition.
04:07And we'll see whether it ultimately gets to that.
04:11Mike Albertus, author of Land Power and a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
04:17Thank you so much for joining us to talk about the United States and Greenland and geopolitical strategy.
04:23We so appreciate your time and insight.
04:26Thanks. It was a pleasure to be here.