An Alternative to Buying Greenland That Could Actually Work


Published January 11, 2025

National Review Online

Curb your enthusiasm: America is not buying Greenland from Denmark. There is, nevertheless, another way to secure our vital security interests in the vast island nation that is much more realistic: signing a Compact of Free Association (COFA).

Americans, perhaps including President-elect Trump, tend not to realize that Greenland is not a distant Danish province. It is a distinct nation that is in communion with the Danish Crown. It governs itself in virtually all respects apart from foreign policy and defense. It has its own parliament, levies its own taxes, and even has its own diplomatic representative in the United States.

Denmark, therefore, cannot sell us Greenland outright because it legally cannot do that without the Greenlanders’ consent.

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Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.

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