Greenland secures €200 million EU investment pledge by leveraging Trump threats

EU proposes more than doubling Greenland funding to €530 million for 2028-34

Greenland is drawing new investment pledges from European allies by leveraging President Trump’s repeated threats to take control of the Arctic island. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, on a Monday visit to Nuuk, pledged €200 million (about $230 million) toward minerals, satellite communications and renewable energy projects in a joint declaration signed with the Danish and Greenlandic prime ministers.

The pledges arrive as Greenland’s strategic Arctic position has grown more valuable amid melting ice that is opening new shipping routes and making the region’s mineral and fossil-fuel deposits more accessible. Brussels has separately proposed more than doubling its Greenland funding to €530 million in the bloc’s 2028-34 long-term budget. Trump has offered to buy the island without offering concrete deals, while U.S.-backed commercial projects in Greenland have yet to produce economic benefits.

Trump on Monday posted on Truth Social an image of the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico and Caribbean islands colored as an American flag. Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, controls its own internal affairs and withdrew from the EU in 1985 following a referendum, though it maintains ties to the bloc through fisheries and development cooperation.

Speaking in Nuuk, von der Leyen said the joint declaration reflected a clear choice by Greenland to strengthen ties with the European Union. “I think it reflects a clear choice expressed by Greenland to strengthen the ties with the European Union, in line with your values, your freedom and your interests,” she said. The declaration also showed that Europe had made “the choice to be more present and to be more engaged in Greenland and in the Arctic,” she said.

The €200 million announcement includes a project to boost satellites and improve internet access in remote areas of the sparsely populated island and two mining projects intended to secure critical raw materials. The Brussels proposal would raise long-term Greenland funding to €530 million for 2028-34, more than double the current level.

Denmark last year announced more than $6.5 billion in additional military spending to bolster security in the Arctic and North Atlantic regions, including Greenland. Copenhagen has also allocated an additional $250 million through 2029 to support infrastructure, healthcare and economic growth. Greenland’s economy depends on subsidies to support its population of roughly 56,000 people. Denmark provides an annual block grant of approximately $620 million and finances Greenland’s police, prisons and defense. Subsidies from Denmark and the EU together constitute nearly half of Greenland’s budget.

Greenlandic politicians have said Greenland’s government is using the prospect of U.S. involvement to accelerate European investment. Greenland’s foreign minister, Múte B. Egede, told members of the European Parliament last week: “If you don’t make an offer fairly soon, others will.” “We can feel that things are on the move,” Egede said. Egede also told the Parliament that European support had carried political weight with Washington, saying it “has supported us morally, knowing that the EU is standing by us, and even more importantly, it has sent a strong message to the U.S. administration that interfering with Greenland also means interfering with the entire European Union.”

American-backed projects on the island have yet to produce economic benefits. Texas-based Greenland Energy plans to spend about $60 million on exploration at the Jameson Land peninsula in eastern Greenland alongside British mining company 80 Mile, claiming as much as 13 billion barrels of crude may lie beneath the area. The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland estimated in 2022 that Jameson Land contained 2.3 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, noting that any estimate is uncertain. In July, Greenland Energy towed a barge carrying an excavator and more than a dozen containers to the area before the Greenlandic government informed the company it lacked permission to unload any equipment. Drilling has been postponed at least until late next year.

Other American-backed ventures, including a rare-earth mine in southern Greenland and a hydroelectric-powered AI data center in a remote western corner of the island, are also not close to fruition. Investor Larry Swets delivered a 36-page proposal to the White House last month through Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, Trump’s handpicked envoy to Greenland, calling on the president to lift the U.S. ban on seal products as a way to improve relations with Greenlanders. “Restoring access to the U.S. market would support Greenlandic hunters and communities, while also sending a powerful signal that America respects Greenlanders’ culture, livelihoods and right to make these choices for themselves,” Swets said. The EU’s ban on seal products has been in effect since 2009, and Greenland has repeatedly asked Brussels to lift it, saying it harms indigenous people in the Arctic. Most Greenlanders shunned Landry when he visited Nuuk in May.

The EU’s effort to draw Greenland closer comes after Iceland, which is regarded as an Arctic state, rejected new talks to join the EU last week, a setback for the bloc’s effort to position itself as a geopolitical counterweight to Trump’s pressure tactics.

Trump has said the U.S. needs Greenland because the island lies on the flight path for missiles fired from Russia toward North America, and has expressed interest in Greenland’s natural resources, including rare-earth minerals. He has repeatedly offered to buy the island, though without naming a price or offering concrete deals.