Before taking up current headlines, let’s paint in some historical context. From its infancy, America seems to have been born to grow.
Following the decisive victory over the British at Yorktown in 1781, the Treaty of Paris two years later confirmed the creation of the new nation of the United States of America. The 13 former colonies thus also became geographically the third largest independent country in the world – at 430,000 square miles trailing only Russia and China.
Subsequently in a historically extraordinary expansion, the size of the young republic increased eightfold, the great bulk of which being reflected in four treaties concluded with France, Mexico, Britain, and Russia.
The first and best known of these was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, by which President Thomas Jefferson persuaded Congress to pay $15 million to Napoleon Bonaparte to acquire 828,000 square miles stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
The second came in 1846 and was the work of the much underrated President James Polk, an “expansionist” who enthusiastically supported the annexation of Texas and succeeded in avoiding war with Britain by signing the Oregon Treaty which established the 49th parallel as the western border between Canada and the U.S. Polk, who first popularized the term “Manifest Destiny,” thus acquired territory of 288,000 square miles including the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
The third, also signed by Polk, came in 1848 with the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War and ceded to the United States 525,000 square miles of territory comprising the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. For compensation Mexico received $15 million dollars.
The final treaty was the purchase in 1867 of Alaska – 586,000 square miles – from Czarist Russia for $7.9 million. It was negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward despite the transaction being widely derided as “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox. “
Now the issue of possible American territorial expansion is once again in the news, owing to President Donald Trump's repeated insistence that the United States must acquire Greenland (836,000 square miles) – preferably by purchase but refusing to rule out force – for purposes of national security.
This initiative induced shock and outrage among Democrats and European elites, who denounced Trump as an “evil imperialist” who was violating every canon of decency and international law. In doing so they revealed their great ignorance of the complex history and issues involving the United States and Denmark, the current colonial proprietor of Greenland.
Beginning in 1867 the aforementioned William Seward conducted lengthy negotiations with Denmark which led to agreement for the purchase of both Greenland and Iceland – also a Danish colony at the time – for $5.5 million in gold. However, owing to the Senate's preoccupation with the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson and residual criticism of the Alaska purchase in the previous year, Seward was unable to submit a treaty for a ratification.
A Greenland purchase came up again in 1917 when the U.S. purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million. Complications arose because Norway, which separated from Denmark in 1905, was making a claim to large portions of Greenland, which it called “Eric the Red’s land.“
Following Hitler's Germany occupying Denmark in 1940, the U.S. – wary of Nazi penetration in the Western Hemisphere – sent troops and established bases in Greenland. This permanent military presence was confirmed by treaty in 1951, following Denmark's refusal of President Truman's offer to purchase Greenland for $100 million. There the matter rested until now.
Currently the population of Greenland is about 56,000 (89% native Inuit people and 11% Danish) ,who are mostly clustered in 16 towns in the southwest of the island. The poverty rate is 17.4% ( compared to 5% in Denmark) . Relations between Inuit people and the government – always difficult – have been further exacerbated by the recent revelation that in the 1960s and ‘70s Danish health officials forced thousands of Inuit girls and women to have IUDs implanted without consent in order to lower costs by suppressing native population growth. A lawsuit alleging genocide has been pending since 2022.
A persuasive case for U.S. acquisition of Greenland was made by Shane Harris in a recent Real Clear Politics article (January 12th, 2026) entitled “Europe should be begging Trump to buy Greenland.” Harris details a “glaring security lapse in what is fast becoming one of the most important strategic regions on the planet.” He further illustrates the urgent need—which only the U.S. can meet—for a critical check against encroaching Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic.
At present Russia has 57 icebreakers (eight of them nuclear-powered) in the Arctic. The U.S has only five. Meanwhile China—which describes itself as “a near-Arctic state”—deployed four new icebreakers in 2025. Only at the last minute did the U.S. pressure Denmark to sidetrack two airports that China had contracted to build in Greenland. At the same time, nine Chinese-controlled mining firms have established two weather stations, and are “exploring opportunities” for extracting rare earths and other minerals.
This isn’t a Netflix episode of “Borgen,” the Danish political thriller. This is real life. An ominous strategic vacuum on the roof of the world won’t be filled by tiny, distant Denmark. Greenland’s future is with one of the great powers, if not America then with one of our enemies, China or Russia: zero sum. With talks ongoing, it becomes increasingly evident why the U.S. can't take “No” for an answer.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his doctorate from Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, The Hill. The Washington Post, Washington Times. Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.