The Donald Trump administration is considering paying between $10,000 and $100,000 per person in Greenland in a bid to convince them to secede from Denmark and join the US.
Touted as a business transaction, should this go through, it would reportedly cost approximately $5-6 billion, as Greenland's population is about 57,000.
Officials told Reuters that this idea of convincing Greenlanders with money was one of the potential options the White House was weighing, with the others being diplomatic agreements and even the use of military force.
However, both Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly refused Trump's offers for the strategically located country—which began as a "real estate deal" idea during his first term in 2019.
In fact, as many as 85 per cent of Greenlanders agreed in a January 2025 opinion poll that they did not want to separate from Denmark just to become a part of the US. Only six per cent of the respondents said they wanted to be part of the US, while nine per cent were undecided.
The poll, conducted by the research agency Verian for various Danish and Greenlandic media, involved responses from nearly 500 people in Greenland aged 18 and above.
Interestingly, the poll was a bit more balanced when it came to the topic of Greenland becoming an independent country—while 57 per cent were in favour of it, a whopping 28 per cent were against it, and 17 per cent were undecided.
More recently, Greenland PM Jens-Frederik Nielsen stated online that it was "wrong" and "disrespectful" that Nuuk was the target of US "threats, pressure, and annexation".
"No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation," Nielsen wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday (local time) after Trump had told reporters that the US needed to acquire Greenland for national security purposes.
Reiterating that Greenland was a NATO member, Nielsen also called for better, respectful ties between Washington and Nuuk, instead of annexation.
"Our country is not an object of superpower rhetoric. We are a people. A land. And democracy. This has to be respected. Especially by close and loyal friends."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet with his Danish counterpart sometime next week to discuss Greenland further.
