Trump plots six-figure bribes to Greenland residents in audacious bid to seize world’s largest island
Donald Trump is apparently considering sending money directly to Greenlanders as part of his plotted landgrab 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 57,000 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 $5.7 billion should the bribe be accepted.
It’s not clear how the logistics of the payments would work – and whether bribing 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.
And Greenland leadership has
‘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.
Trump’s resurgence of interest in the island came after the US capture and extradition of now-ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. He had previously floated acquiring Greenland because of the strategic location and the ability for the US to provide more deterrence in the region against Russia and China.
Americans aren’t so set on Donald Trump taking military action or enacting regime change in Greenland despite the president making it clear that could be a next target after Venezuela
Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland in March 2025 for a few hours to tour the US Pituffik Space Base as Trump continued to float the idea of acquiring Greenland to gain more control over the strategically placed Arctic island
‘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.’
The White House, when asked about the prospect of sending money directly to Greenlanders, referred Reuters to comments made by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday.
At her press briefing, Leavitt told reporters that Trump’s team was ‘looking at what a potential purchase would look like.’
And Rubio says he plans to meet with his Danish counterpart in Washington, DC next week to discuss the issue of Greenland.
Last year Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visited Greenland in March, and spent a few hours on the island touring a military base.
Vance warned reporters during that trip that the US has to ‘wake up’ to China and Russia’s threats in the region.
‘We can’t just bury our head in the sand,’ he said before quipping, ‘or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow.’
His visit came just two months after Donald Trump Jr. and now-deceased conservative luminary Charlie Kirk led a delegation to Greenland just days before Trump took office for his second term.
