Greenland, Sharks, and the Question We Should Actually Be Asking

Greenland has lent its name to some icons. Greenland-style kayaks have influenced some beautiful designs. And Greenland style paddles are world-famous. Greenland sharks can live for five centuries and therefore do not care what the trigger-happy apes are up to this decade.

And now Greenland itself is in the news, and the conversation jumps straight to ownership—buying it, acquiring it, annexing it. That framing is a tell. Pay no attention to the people behind the curtain.

When we talk about “Greenland” in a U.S. policy context, we should start by being precise. Greenland is not a sovereign state. It is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland controls resource development, licensing, and most internal economic policy. Denmark retains sovereignty, foreign affairs, and defense. So the correct framing is not “Greenland or Denmark,” but Greenland within Denmark—at least for now.

That distinction matters, because it clarifies what the United States is, and is not, actually seeking.

Once the framing is right, the conclusion follows quickly: the United States does not need Greenland. It does not need territory. It does not need sovereignty. What it needs is something more limited—and far more achievable.

The U.S. needs Greenland not to belong to anyone else, and preferably to behave as though it already belongs to the U.S. strategic ecosystem.

That is not a territorial ambition. It is a customs, export-control, and supply-chain ambition.

As one of the few experts on Incoterms® Rules, I drill into my students three concepts that are routinely confused in supply chains:

• ownership
• possession
• control

Though they are related, they are not the same thing. And they are often mutually exclusive.

You already know how this works. Think about borrowing a car. You possess it and you control it—but you do not own it. When you lend your car to someone else, you own it, but you no longer possess or control it.

Supply chains forget this distinction all the time, usually right before something expensive happens. We routinely assume that ownership transfers when possession or control transfers. That assumption is often wrong.

Incoterms® Rules are explicit on this point. They define where possession, risk, and practical control transfer—but they say nothing about ownership. Title transfer is deliberately excluded.

Which brings us back to Greenland.

From an export-control standpoint, Greenland already sits closer to Washington than casual observers assume. Through Denmark and the EU, Greenland operates within the multilateral export-control framework, including the Wassenaar Arrangement. That provides baseline alignment: shared control lists, common dual-use concepts, and a general commitment to keep things-that-go-boom out of the wrong hands.

But Wassenaar is a floor, not a ceiling. It harmonizes categories, not outcomes. It does not require denial to particular countries, nor does it meaningfully address upstream materials—rare earth ores, concentrates, and early-stage processing inputs—that only become “strategic” later in the supply chain.

From a customs perspective, the fixation on tariff rates is similarly misplaced—especially in a post-Trump trade environment. Section 232, Section 301, AD/CVD, and other discretionary tools have turned tariffs into political risk rather than predictable math. What matters in practice is not the duty rate on paper, but whether a supply chain is treated as trusted and aligned, or instead exposed to sudden and unpleasant surprises. No one likes surprises.

This is where the real leverage lies.

The decisive tools are not free trade agreements or border changes. They are ownership, financing, processing location, export-licensing discretion, long-term offtake agreements, and defense-linked procurement. None of these require annexation. None require an FTA. And none require rewriting borders.

A brief detour: U.S. analogs (and why they only go so far)

For a U.S. audience, it is tempting to reach for domestic analogs. Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Alaska. Each explains something—and each fails in important ways.

Puerto Rico sits fully inside the U.S. customs and trade system and has no independent control over resources or external economic relations. The U.S. Virgin Islands lie outside the customs territory, but that distinction is largely fiscal. Alaska is Arctic and resource-rich, but it was acquired by treaty and fully absorbed into the U.S. constitutional system.

Greenland has more real economic autonomy than any U.S. territory, and it operates in a European constitutional model Americans sometimes misunderstand.

Back to the point.

From a U.S. supply-chain perspective, a “successful” Greenland strategy would look deliberately unglamorous: U.S. or allied firms dominate mineral development; financing comes from trusted institutions; processing is routed to aligned jurisdictions; and exports to strategic competitors are constrained through ownership, contracts, and regulatory alignment rather than headline bans.

Greenland remains autonomous. Denmark retains sovereignty. Greenland behaves as a trusted node in a U.S.-aligned industrial base. And the sharks stay chilled.

So what does a “win” look like?

For the United States, a win is quiet: predictable access to critical inputs and insulation from discretionary trade penalties—without owning territory.

For Greenland, a win is leverage rather than absorption: investment, infrastructure, security guarantees, and a durable role in Arctic supply chains—without surrendering political identity.

That is why the fixation on “buying Greenland” misses the point. Ownership is the wrong metric.

Alignment is the right one.

BTW, if you made it this far in the blog, did you click on that rare earth link above?  Gotcha!