What pure assets does the island have? | EUROtoday

Donald Trump has made clear he covets Greenland.

Now he claims to have secured the “framework” of a future deal, to deal with defence on the island – a deal that he says contains rights to uncommon earth minerals.

So what pure assets does Greenland have?

Greenland is believed to take a seat on prime of enormous reserves of oil and pure fuel.

It can be stated to be house to the overwhelming majority of uncooked supplies thought-about essential for electronics, inexperienced power and different strategic and navy applied sciences – to which Trump has been pushing to safe America’s entry.

Overall, 25 of 34 minerals deemed “critical raw materials” by the European Commission are present in Greenland, together with graphite, niobium and titanium, in accordance with the 2023 Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

Greenland’s strategic significance is “not just about defence”, Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, stated at a Senate listening to final yr concerning the potential acquisition of Greenland, pointing to the island’s “vast reserves of rare earth elements”.

Trump has generally downplayed the significance of these assets, pointing to what he claims is rising Russian and Chinese affect within the area to justify his claims that the US has to “have” the island.

“I want Greenland for security – I don’t want it for anything else,” he informed reporters on the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, pointing partly to the problem of exploring within the Arctic area. “You have to go 25ft down through ice to get it. It’s not, it’s not something that a lot of people are going to do or want to do.”

But entry to the island’s pure assets have loomed giant within the background for the administration, which has put the US financial system on the centre of its geopolitical imaginative and prescient and has made combatting China’s dominance of the uncommon earths business a precedence.

Trump’s curiosity in controlling Greenland is “primarily about access to those resources, and blocking China’s access”, in accordance with Steven Lamy, professor of worldwide relations on the University of Southern California.

Even earlier than Trump’s second time period, the US had been tightening its ties with Greenland, together with by reopening its consulate within the island’s capital, Nuuk, in 2020, responding to Russia and China’s increasing navy presence within the Arctic.

Since Trump returned to workplace, his allies have talked up the island’s business potential, as rising temperatures broaden sea routes and alternatives to discover the area’s fisheries and different pure assets, particularly these associated to defence, resembling power and important minerals, that the administration sees as a precedence.

“This is about shipping lanes. This is about energy. This is about fisheries. And, of course, it’s about your mission, which is keeping us safe and monitoring space, monitoring our adversaries, and making sure the American people can sleep safely in their homes, day in and day out,” Mike Waltz, the present US ambassador to the United Nations after which Trump’s nationwide safety adviser, informed US troops stationed in Greenland final yr.

And Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry informed CNBC this month that Trump was a “business president” who believed the island represented “a more robust trading opportunity”.

Over the summer time, the Trump administration signed off on the potential of backing an American firm’s mining venture in Greenland, by way of $120m (£90m) in financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

The plan constructed on different offers the Trump administration has agreed with Australia and Japan, in addition to non-public corporations, to safe US entry to provide and manufacturing of uncommon earths, an business now dominated by China.

Dr Patrick Schröder, a senior analysis fellow at Chatham House, stated the size of Greenland’s essential minerals holdings had the potential to “shift the dial” for the US, permitting it to cut back its reliance on China – a key precedence for the administration.

But critics of Trump’s designs on the island, say it’s not clear why US management could be essential to entry the island’s assets.

Analysts additionally warn that tapping them is simpler stated than executed.

Among different challenges, mining in Greenland at the moment is pricey and hampered by extreme climate circumstances, a scarcity of infrastructure and a small labour power, Lamy stated.

While exploration permits have been given for 100 blocs of the island, there are simply two productive mines in Greenland.

“Greenland has been trying to attract outside investments into its extractive industries for a long time, and has not had a lot of luck because the business case just hasn’t really been there,” stated Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher on the Danish Institute for International Studies.

“It’s true that there are huge quantities of minerals of various kinds in Greenland. However, it also costs a lot of money to extract those minerals.”

But Prof Andrew Shepherd, director of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, stated quickly melting layers of ice are more and more easing the method, exposing rock for potential mining and creating river runoff.

“Getting all the fieldwork done traditionally has been very hard to do because you have to get energy to remote regions,” he informed the BBC.

“With the melting ice, you get the potential for hydro power in the area where the land is being exposed… so this presents itself as an interesting prospect.”

Jennifer Spence, director of the Arctic Initiative on the Harvard Kennedy School, stated when it got here to mining in Greenland, “it’s all still about potential”.

Still, she thinks the island’s strategic delivery location and uncommon earths deposits have been key elements drawing Trump’s consideration.

“His logic is that there’s a national security imperative,” Spence stated. “My belief is that this is much more economically driven.”

Additional reporting by Natalie Sherman