Trump plots six-figure bribes to Greenland residents in audacious bid to seize world's largest island
Donald Trump is apparently weighing sending money directly to Greenlanders as part of his plotted landgrab of the Arctic island.
Donald Trump is considering sending money directly to residents of Greenland as part of his plotted land grab of the Arctic island.
White House officials are discussing a range of options between $10,000 and $100,000 per person to bribe them to let the US take control, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The population of Greenland sits somewhere around 56,000 and it currently remains a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. This means that on the higher end the US could end up paying Greenland residents $5.6 billion should the bribes be massively accepted.
It's not clear how the logistics of the payments would work – and whether paying Greenlanders would be a legal way for the US to go about acquiring the landmass.
The proposal, however, does provide at least one explanation of how the US might move forward with trying to 'buy' the island after Denmark has expressed it has no interest in letting go of its Arctic territory.
Greenland government has definitively rejected any US purchase proposal.
Both Denmark and Greenland leadership have repeatedly said the island is not and never will be for sale.
'Enough is enough... No more fantasies about annexation,' Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen wrote in a social media post on Sunday after Trump reupped the proposal this weekend.
Americans aren't so set on Donald Trump taking military action or enacting regime change in Greenland despite the president making it clear that it could be a next target after Venezuela
President Donald Trump says that the US needs Greenland for the sake of national security
But Greenlanders have said in polling and in public interviews that they aren't very interested in becoming part of the US
Trump's resurgence of interest in the world's largest island – classified as so since Australia is a continent – came after the US capture and extradition of now-ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
The president had previously floated acquiring Greenland even before taking office for his second term, noting the strategic location and the ability for the US to provide more deterrence in the region against Russia and China.
'We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark isn't going to be able to do it,' Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.
He insisted: 'It's so strategic.'
Even if Trump did try to bribe Greenlanders with lump sum payments, it doesn't appear he would be successful in swaying them.
A poll commissioned by two Danish newspapers in January 2025 – when Trump was going hard on his rhetoric of buying Greenland – showed that 85 percent of Greenlanders do not want to become part of the US.