Image Source: Foreign Policy.
Allies of the United States, especially those in NATO, may have been shocked by President Trump’s refusal, before taking office on 20 January 2025, to rule out force in pursuit of a U.S. claim to Greenland, an autonomous territory most of which lies in the Arctic Circle and whose sovereignty currently is vested in Denmark. However, assuming the threat of force was rhetorical bluster (as it almost certainly was in this case), the claim raises interesting questions. These include access to rare and precious minerals, the relevance of the Monroe Doctrine today, the resurrection of the concept of spheres of influence, the issue of self-determination and historical precedents. As these are such large topics, this article will confine itself only to the latter two.
This is not the first time a U.S. President has tried to acquire sovereignty over Greenland nor is it the only Danish territory in the Americas that the U.S. has coveted. And while previous U.S. overtures to Denmark over Greenland were rebuffed, that was not the case with the Danish Virgin Islands. The Danish colony became a U.S. one in 1917 after a prolonged negotiation that lasted exactly 50 years. Thus, Denmark has not in the past been averse to transferring sovereignty over a territory provided that it received the blessing of the Danish parliament with the option of a referendum among the people concerned.
Whether this will happen in the case of Greenland remains to be seen, but in the case of the Danish Virgin Islands (St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas) the long drawn-out saga began soon after the U.S. Civil War ended and 20 years after a successful slave revolt in the Islands had led to emancipation. This in turn contributed to the decline of the sugar industry, previously the mainstay of the colony, reducing the attraction of the islands for the Danish government that had to pay bigger subsidies to keep the islands going.
From the U.S. point of view, and in particular President Ulysses Grant (1869-77), the attraction of the Danish Virgin Islands was the magnificent port in the harbour of St. Thomas. This had been a free port for a century, much to the delight of Adam Smith who praised it in his Wealth of Nations, but it was not its status as an entrepôt that attracted Grant. It was – along with prospective ports in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico – a strategic asset that might serve the security needs of the expanding U.S. Navy as it sought to project its power into the Caribbean and prepare for the building of a trans-isthmian canal (at that time expected to be through Nicaragua and not Panama).
The interest in St. Thomas in particular was fortunate as the Danish government in 1867 had already had to explain to the U.S. Secretary of State William Seward (1861-9) that, under the terms of a Franco-Danish Treaty of 1733, St. Croix could not be transferred to another power without the permission of France. As the French government refused to give its blessing (it had imperial ambitions of its own in the Caribbean as well as its own plans for a canal through Nicaragua), the negotiations between Denmark and the U.S. then focused on St. Thomas and St. John alone. A sale was agreed (USD $7.5 million), the Danish parliament approved it and a referendum was held on the island among those males eligible to vote (only 22 voted against).
All seemed settled, but there was the small matter of the U.S. Senate where a vote was required to approve the bilateral treaty that would have led to the transfer. This proved to be much harder than expected and, despite President Grant’s pleadings, the necessary votes could not be secured before the deadline of April 1870. The treaty therefore lapsed. The Senate had also refused to support (by one vote) annexation of the Dominican Republic a few months earlier, so U.S. interest in territorial expansion in the Caribbean temporarily waned. Meanwhile Denmark, increasingly conscious of the growing fiscal burden of the islands (even reexports through St. Thomas were starting to fall) now flirted with other potential buyers, especially Germany, but nothing came of it.
Following the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the acquisition by the United States of Puerto Rico as its first Caribbean colony (not to mention Cuba that had become a U.S. protectorate a few years later as a result of the Platt Amendment), the U.S. once again turned its attention to the Danish Virgin Islands (all three of them) and this time the U.S. Senate gave its approval. However, Denmark had by now been modernising the sugar industry, had established the Danish West Indies Plantation Company in 1902 and was about to set up the Danish West-Indian National Bank. As a result, the Danish parliament was in no mood to part with its Caribbean colony and the Upper House (Landsthing) rejected the draft treaty (the vote was tied). This decision was soon regretted as the sugar could no longer be sold competitively in its traditional market after the U.S. gave tariff preferences to Cuba and free access to Puerto Rico.
Neither side, both having been humiliated, was keen to reopen negotiations until the outbreak of the First World War. Denmark and the U.S. (at first) remained neutral, but the U.S. was conscious of the security risks if Germany should occupy Denmark and then become the de facto owner of the Virgin Islands. Germany, after all, had a powerful navy and submarine fleet that could threaten the Panama Canal (opened in 1914), other parts of the Caribbean (including Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.
A renewed offer of purchase was therefore made in 1915 by the administration of President Woodrow Wilson (1913-21). This was accepted by the Danish government (they had little choice this time in view of wartime conditions) and a draft treaty was approved not just by the Danish parliament but also by a large majority of the Danish electorate in a referendum. The U.S. Senate was strongly in favour. However, there would be no plebiscite among the islanders themselves. Instead, an unofficial referendum was organised on St. Croix by a labour leader called Hamilton Jackson. Yet only seven voters opposed the transfer and the U.S. flag was hoisted on 31 March 1917 – just before the entry of the U.S. into the First World War against Germany.
U.S. interest in Greenland, the other Danish colony in the Americas, is also of long-standing. Secretary of State Seward had expressed an interest in 1867, but the Danish government did not reciprocate. The issue remained on the table, however, and the U.S. raised the possibility of a transfer of the territory on a number of occasions. In the Second World War, however, Denmark was invaded by Germany and the U.S. – just as it did in many European colonies in the Caribbean – occupied the Arctic territory. And when the war ended, President Harry Truman offered to buy Greenland. The Danish government refused the offer, but could do nothing to remove the U.S. military presence. This was then formalised by the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949 with a new U.S. base on Greenland falling under the NATO umbrella.
Will the interest expressed in a transfer by President Trump succeed where the offer by previous presidents failed? Possibly, but there are several factors to be taken into account of which the most important is likely to be the views of the 57,000 islanders themselves. As a self-governing autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has its own government and is currently led by a Prime Minister, Múte Bourup Egede, who leads a pro- independence party. Even if U.S. pressure can overcome Danish resistance, as is probable, it is not to be expected that Greenland would vote for annexation when independence is a real possibility.
If the islanders do opt for independence, Denmark would find it very difficult legally, and impossible politically, to stand in their way. However, there would be nothing to stop an independent Greenland from reaching an agreement with the U.S. that gave it a similar status to the Marshall Islands, Palau or Micronesia – an agreement that recognised the territory’s formal sovereignty while effectively ceding control of foreign affairs and defence to the U.S. The agreement would no doubt also cover such things as freedom of movement to and from the U.S. as well as the absence of trade restrictions.
Problems would only arise if an independent Greenland insisted on having full control of all policies normally associated with an independent country, leaving it free in principle to negotiate security and defense agreements with arctic powers other than the U.S. At this point alarm bells would start to ring in Washington, but it is unlikely that Russia or China or anyone else would risk a war with the U.S. on this issue. Annexation by the U.S. against the wishes of the islanders would, of course, remain a theoretical possibility, but would do untold damage to the standing of the U.S. in the court of world opinion. Thus, formal independence with defense and foreign policy outsourced to the U.S. seems the most likely.
Victor Bulmer-Thomas is Honorary Professor in the Institute of the Americas, University College London. Between 2001 and 2006, he was the director of Chatham House. He is the author or editor of some thirty books, including, most recently, Internal Empire: The Rise and Fall of English Imperialism.
