THE FINAL WORD
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But why, exactly, should we think that purchasing Greenland is such an absurd idea?
the decades ahead. Not since Viking explorer Erik the Red named it “Greenland” to encourage settlement has there been a better
time to establish claim to the island. So could we get it at a good price?
Trump claims that it costs Denmark $700 million a year to support Greenland. Turns out it’s more like $740 million, as it can only generate half of its annual budget. The world’s largest island is a welfare case. Maybe the Danes, who strain under the cost of their own government programs, would be happy to offload some freeloaders. We won’t know if we don’t ask. Will Donald Trump pull off his most daring real estate transaction yet? One that could arguably be the largest transfer of land for cash in the history of the modern world. Probably not. But even though Greenland is very unlikely to become the 51st state, it has led to one of Trump’s greatest tweets of all time:
kind, although America has an Air Force base on the northwest portion of the island. Given its harsh climate and lack of inhabitants, maybe a better question is, “Would America want Greenland?” The short answer – assuming a reasonable price – is absolutely. Greenland is a territory with many strategic benefits. It has abundant natural resources like zinc, copper, gold, coal, and uranium. In fact, an Australian mining company called “Greenland Minerals” (with a large chunk of Chinese ownership) is already mining for rare earth minerals there. Greenland could also be helpful for projecting U.S. interests in the Arctic circle – an increasingly fierce realm of competition between America and Russia, among others. Greenland is also likely to get much more valuable over time. If the predictions about a coming global fresh water crisis are correct (estimates are that one-quarter of the world’s population face running out of potable water) having access to the second-largest source of fresh water in the world – the Greenlandic ice shelf – seems like a good idea. Climate change also means that more of the country will emerge from under glaciers in
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September 2019
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