Greenland: U.S. Interests, Options, and Allies

President Donald Trump isn’t the first American official to express interest in Greenland but might well be the most forceful in asserting this interest, insisting that the United States needs the massive island and focusing on “ownership” rather than other possible arrangements. This has provoked considerable concern from Greenlanders, from Denmark (which today “owns” Greenland), and from other NATO allies. But what U.S. interests are at stake? How could the United States secure them? And how might allies respond to various potential U.S. approaches?

On January 23, the Center for the National Interest hosted two terrific speakers to answer these and other questions.

—Alexander Gray is Chief Executive Officer of American Global Strategies and was Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the White House National Security Council during the first Trump administration. He has also served as Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base at the National Economic Council and was a senior advisor to former Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA).

—Martha Miller is the Center for the National Interest’s Senior Fellow for Alliances and Emerging Threats. She leads the Center’s programs on transatlantic security. Miller was previously Deputy Executive Director of George Mason University’s National Security Institute and served in the White House and the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. She was earlier on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff and an aide to former Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR).

Paul Saunders, the President of the Center for the National Interest, moderated the discussion.