Greenland

Recently Trump said something kind of off the cuff about buying Greenland but often times there is a reason behind what he says. In this case it should be noted that Greenland has one of the largest deposits of rare earth metals in the world. The country is gifted with large amounts of inexpensive hydropower along with the infrastructure for mining and processing the ore and year around shipping facilities. Denmark, the present owner of Greenland, is a small country with a population of 6 million and a GDP of $400 billion and they do not have the capital needed to develop the rare earth mines. These mines could supply the needs of the West and thus eliminate dependence on China. The US could enter an agreement with Denmark to mine the materials and give them a percentage or just buy the country up front. If the US bought Denmark for $600 billion that would give every citizen of Denmark $100,000 dollars. Perhaps the citizens of Denmark would prefer money up front instead of a payoff over the next 50 years. The US bought Alaska which is about the same size as Greenland for $700 million in today's dollar so $600 billion would be almost ten times as much. The US bought the Louiseanna territory, about the same size as Greenland, from France in 1803 for $15 million and in todays dollars that would be $400 billion.