Trump isn’t the first U.S. politician with his eye on Greenland

Robert J. Walker, a 19th century Washington-based lobbyist, was an ardent expansionist and imperialist, as well as a close friend and ally of Abraham Lincoln’s and Andrew Johnson’s secretary of state, William H. Seward. That’s the same Seward best remembered for his savvy purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million, also known as “Seward’s Folly.”

[‘Seward’s Folly’ is a myth. Spread the word.]

But Walker, who had been one of the driving forces behind the annexation of Texas, was hungry for more. Walker, who served as a senator from Mississippi from 1835 to 1845, also desired the Danish colony of Greenland, just as his spiritual descendant, President Donald Trump, does today.

Much like the president - who reportedly had a “fiery” phone call two weeks ago with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen - Walker was not someone who easily took no for an answer.

Intrigued by Walker’s suggestion, Seward - who was negotiating with Copenhagen to purchase the Danish West Indies - asked Walker to prepare a report describing what the United States stood to gain from acquiring Greenland, as well as Denmark’s other colony, Iceland, which he also had his eye on.

As his 1868 report underlined, the United States stood to gain a lot, both materially and strategically, from buying the two islands. The report sang the praises of Iceland’s natural attributes, including its “purple mountains,” “100 warm springs,” “unsurpassed hydraulic power” and so forth.

The awestruck lawyer described Greenland as “the largest island in the world … larger than half the size of Europe with a far greater shoreline,” possessing “great mineral wealth,” particularly cryolite, “a most important mineral.”

Walker also had designs on Canada. With the recent purchase of Alaska straddling Canada’s western coast, the acquisition of Greenland on her eastern coast would complete the other half of the topographical “sandwich” he was hoping to create, and thereby help induce Canadians to join the United States.

Here’s how Walker, who also served as treasury secretary in the administration of James K. Polk, put it in his letter to Seward: “It is only through the acquisition of Greenland that would flank British North America for thousands of miles on the north and west, and greatly increase her inducements, peacefully and cheerfully, to become part of the American Union.”

As it happened, Walker had heard wrong: Neither Iceland nor Greenland was for sale. Nor would they ever be. Congress, which was still digesting Seward’s purchase of Alaska, didn’t like Walker and Seward’s new territorial wish list.

The derision that greeted the idea of the three prospective acquisitions - Greenland, Alaska and St. Thomas - was loud enough to persuade Seward and the Johnson administration to drop the idea of buying either Greenland or Iceland, as well as the Danish West Indies.

Walker died in 1869. His dream of expanding the emergent American empire to the northern Arctic was reduced to a wish, presumably forever - until Trump revived it in 2019 and again, more seriously, last month.

[Alaska’s congressional delegation split on Trump idea of making Greenland a US territory]

Would Robert Walker, a century and a half after he suggested buying Greenland, wind up having the last laugh after all?

Not for sale

Denmark has a history of selling territory, including islands, to Washington before. Yet as Danish commentators point out, Greenland is not “for sale,” nor has it ever been.

[In Greenland, a cold shoulder for Trump, but curiosity about U.S. ties]

U.S. officials did secretly offer Denmark $100 million in gold bars for the island, which they deemed “a military necessity” in 1946, but the offer was firmly and politely rejected.

Moreover, Greenland is no longer a Danish colony. Although it’s still technically a Danish possession, the island and its roughly 50,000 people were granted self-rule in 2009. As Frederiksen told Trump, Greenland’s future political status is in the hands of Greenlanders, most of whom have expressed the wish to be independent of Denmark eventually, according to recent polls. Polls also indicate that virtually no Greenlanders wish to be U.S. citizens.

America’s history in Greenland

Greenland was already part of the United States - sort of - during World War II. Nazi Germany invaded and occupied continental Denmark, leaving Denmark’s other two territories, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, exposed to a potential invasion. Britain quickly occupied the Faroe Islands, and along with Canada, made plans to occupy parts of Greenland, which would have pulled the otherwise neutral island into the conflict.

As George West, who helped establish the first U.S. Consulate in Godthab in 1940, put it: “[President Franklin] Roosevelt immediately decided we had to do something about Greenland.” Moreover, “[FDR] pointed out in one of his fireside radio chats, Greenland was essentially North American, that the fauna and flora were North American, the natives were North American.” The wishes of the native islanders were not consulted.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, it took over protection of Greenland’s valuable mine of cryolite, a key ingredient of aluminum, the same one that Walker had alluded to. A U.S. air base was established. Thousands of American servicemen arrived on the island. Greenland was effectively part of America.

After the liberation of Denmark in May 1945, Washington returned political control of the island to Copenhagen. The American military presence, which at one time numbered 18,000, continued, albeit in decreasing numbers. The 1940 agreement was expanded in 1951 after Denmark became a founding member of NATO.

During the Cold War, the United States operated two main bases on Greenland: Sondre Stromfjord in the south, and Thule in the far north. The latter was a major Strategic Air Command base. Greenland also was part of the North American Defense Command’s Distant Early Warning Line (DEW), the series of radar stations around the Arctic Circle established in the late 1950s to detect incoming bombers from the Soviet Union.

A significant military presence

The Air Force pulled out of Sondre Stromfjord in the 1990s, but retained its base at Thule, with the Danish government’s blessing.

Thule is now Pituffik Space Base, a major United States Space Force base and the home of the 821st Space Base Group, which provides advanced missile detection capabilities to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Several hundred American troops are based there. The Danish government has never put a limit on the number of troops Washington can station there.

All of which helps explain why Danish officials are mystified at Trump’s new push to “buy” Greenland.

“Most Danish commentators are puzzled by Trump’s provocations,” said Eric Einhorn of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “The U.S. has military bases on Greenland. U.S. companies can invest there with the permission of the Greenlandic government. There are no current Chinese or Russian investments or installations.”

Or as Ulrik Gad, a Greenlandic expert at the Danish Institute for International Studies, “The trouble is that everything the U.S. could rationally want they already have. They have the Thule radar. They have the serious infrastructure and military equipment, so they can keep China out of Greenland. So what more could [Trump] want?”

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Gordon F. Sander is a journalist and historian based in Riga, Latvia, who specializes in part in writing about the Nordic region, which he has been covering since the 1990s He is the author of nine books, including the forthcoming “The Finnish Front Line: Kekkonen, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Cold War.”