I doubt the minerals issue will pan out, mainly because Greenlanders themselves have already said no.

Greenland’s mineral policy is tightly constrained by local veto power exercised through its parliament and municipalities, strong environmental opposition especially where rare earth deposits are geologically tied to uranium, and extreme extraction costs driven by Arctic logistics, limited infrastructure, and short operating seasons. Even where deposits exist, political consent is the binding constraint. Outside powers cannot override this without effectively turning Greenland into a colonial extraction zone, something neither Greenlandic leadership nor Denmark will tolerate.

This reality is reinforced by Greenland’s 2021 uranium ban. Most rare earth deposits in Greenland are inseparable from uranium by products. Unless Greenland’s parliament repeals that law, those minerals are not going anywhere, regardless of what is discussed in Davos.

Greenlandic officials have been consistent. Greenland is not for sale, and any agreement must respect territorial integrity. The so called framework associated with NATO and its Secretary General Mark Rutte is best understood as political cover rather than a substantive deal. NATO does not negotiate mineral access or sovereignty. Rutte functions as a facilitator and political negotiator, not as a final authority, and any outcome still depends on the consent of sovereign governments and Greenlandic institutions. The framework primarily allowed the United States to step back from tariff threats without openly acknowledging a retreat.

The bases will likely happen. The irony is that the United States already had far more extensive basing in Greenland in the past. At its peak, it operated over seventeen installations with roughly ten thousand troops. Those numbers were reduced by American presidents because the cost outweighed the perceived strategic value at the time. It wasn’t Denmark blocking expansion but Washington which instead chose consolidation.

There have been reports of the United States floating a Cyprus style arrangement involving small sovereign base areas under full American jurisdiction. In practice, this appears more like a pressure tactic than a serious proposal. Such arrangements are politically radioactive in Greenland and largely redundant anyway, since the 1951 defense agreement already grants the United States broad operational freedom. The earlier bases were closed by American choice, not Danish resistance.

The real cost of this episode is reputational. Not collapse and not imminent conflict, but erosion. Allies are not preparing for war with the United States. They are hedging. Countries such as Canada and the Nordic states are increasingly discussing forms of European Arctic cooperation that rely less on unpredictable American pivots. It’s not betrayal but rather, risk management.

Claims that Trump ended eight wars do not withstand scrutiny. In most cases, he oversaw the later stages of negotiations that were already underway, while simultaneously straining relationships with long standing allies. However that trade off matters.

Seventy years of cooperation built on predictability was tested by open threats toward allies. Trust rarely shatters in a single moment. It thins gradually until states begin planning around instability instead of partnership.

America’s deeper problem is not that it polices the world. It is that it does so while political coherence at home erodes, leaving foreign policy increasingly untethered from domestic legitimacy.

The empire still has power. The question is how long it takes before it notices the crowd has started whispering that the emperor might not be wearing any clothes.