Is Trump about to open new military bases in Greenland?

After threatening to annex Greenland earlier this year, the United States is lodging a bid to open three new military bases on the territory.

President Trump has never been shy about his desire to claim Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, as his own.

Aiming to ease diplomatic tensions after multiple threats to annex the territory earlier this year, the White House has now announced it has been engaged in ‘high-level talks’ with Denmark and Greenland about the bases.

The US proposal would see three additional military bases created on the island, which would be designated as US sovereign territory, one source told the BBC.

Trump has wanted additional US military support in the country to counter threats from Russia and China in the Arctic Circle.

Greenland sits in the Arctic Circle, where world powers, including China and Russia, have been jostling for military control.

Controlling Greenland – or even having more military bases – would give a nation an outpost in a vital naval corridor connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic.

As climate change melts the ice caps, the once nearly impossible-to-navigate ocean is becoming more navigable, opening new shipping routes.

Trump has been eyeing up the island since 2019, but he’s not the first president to want it.

The US tried to buy it in 1846 and again in 1946 – for the equivalent of £970million– amid the Cold War.

Greenland has been owned by Denmark since 1953, but it operates as an independent territory. Denmark cannot sell the region, for example.

The island’s 56,000 residents have the right to hold a referendum on independence.

But Greenlanders don’t want their home to be bought by anyone – especially not the US.

That’s now the majority of Greenlanders, Danes, and even Americans feel, according to polls in January.

Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the US built the military base Thule Air Base in a remote corner of Greenland.

Now known as Pituffik Space Base (pronounced bee-doo-feek), the post is home to 150 personnel, who keep an eye out for ballistic missile attacks.

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