He may have been triggered the day before, during his July 31 appearance on Real America\u2019s Voice, a Right-wing television channel.<\/p>\n
His interviewer, Steve Gruber, ventured a prediction that Greenland would come under US operational control by the end of Trump\u2019s presidential term in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll be right,\u201d Trump responded. \u201cYou should make that bet, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US president has made no secret of his desire to seize the Danish territory<\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t all. The day before that interview, something else went down in the vicinity of Tasiilaq itself.<\/p>\n The story, involving a pair of oil companies based in London and Texas, sounds unexceptional. On the surface, it looks like a misunderstanding between enthusiastic drillers and box-ticking bureaucrats.<\/p>\n But in the explosive atmosphere of Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland, many saw a tripwire that could reignite his acquisitive ambitions.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s a story that also raises a more far-reaching question: is Greenland really the El Dorado of oil and minerals that Trump seems to imagine?<\/p>\n A trillion-dollar oil field<\/p>\n One company that does see black gold in the permafrost is London-listed 80 Mile. Its subsidiary, White Flame Energy, holds the only permits to explore the territory\u2019s onshore Jameson Land basin.<\/p>\n The bet is that this isolated expanse, about 500 miles further up the east coast from Tasiilaq, may be a kind of geological mirror of the British-Norwegian oil bounty under the North Sea<\/a>.<\/p>\n If so, Jameson could yield more than 13 billion barrels of oil. At today\u2019s Brent prices, that\u2019s a payload of more than $1tn (\u00a3800bn).<\/p>\n 80 Mile has struck a deal with Texas-based Greenland Energy, which will fund the exploratory drilling in exchange for acquiring interests in the Jameson Land prospects.<\/p>\n Recently Greenland Energy, which has several board members seemingly plugged into Trump\u2019s personal and business circles, shifted some kit closer to Jameson Land.<\/p>\n This all seemed routine. But on July 30, the Greenland government issued a statement<\/a> saying it had just become aware of the move and it wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n The company and its partners did not have the proper permit to move the equipment, the government said. It issued \u201ca strong warning\u201d that every major logistical step needed explicit approval from the Mineral Resources Authority.<\/p>\n Greenland\u2019s officials might just be sticklers for process. But it was hard not to see this as a quiet act of political defiance against Trump.<\/p>\n Testing Trump\u2019s temper<\/p>\n Jeff Landry, Mr Trump\u2019s Greenland envoy, had waxed lyrical in May about the prospect that Western oil firms could be pumping oil there \u201cwithin 10 months or so\u201d.<\/p>\n He seemed to share the vision of Greenland as a kind of Arctic petrostate, a polar Saudi Arabia, shipping oil to a thirsty world through its thawing northern waters.<\/p>\n \u201cGreenland could be exporting two million barrels of oil a day right now,\u201d Landry said in May. \u201cThink about what that would mean. Think about what kind of pressure that would relieve in the Strait of Hormuz.\u201d<\/p>\n But the reality could now be very different. The Greenlandic authorities say that White Flame Energy \u2013 the 80 Mile subsidiary that formally holds the exploration permits \u2013 is only at step one of an 11-stage approval process.<\/p>\n Greenland Energy may now have to wait until the winter of 2027 to get started on drilling the first well.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s just to work out how much oil is out there. Extraction would be yet further down the track.<\/p>\n \u201cThis pushback is a bit of a reality check for Greenland Energy. I think they maybe thought they could come in and just drill on their own timeline,\u201d says Lewis Lawrence, of the energy analysis firm Wood Mackenzie.<\/p>\n But Greenland\u2019s government is playing with fire.<\/p>\n Its officials may simply be following procedure, which includes environmental impact statements and community consultations.<\/p>\n But they also risk frustrating Trump, rekindling his impatience to bring the resource-rich and strategically located territory under Washington\u2019s aegis.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of risk, for both sides, that this could escalate or aggravate the Trump administration,\u201d says a mining consultant who has worked on projects in Greenland.<\/p>\n \u2018Sealskin diplomacy\u2019<\/p>\n The companies appear keen to prevent this. Both 80 Mile and Greenland Energy have vowed to follow the letter of the law.<\/p>\n \u201cGreenland Energy remains committed to advancing its oil exploration programme responsibly and in accordance with Greenland\u2019s regulatory process, and in full compliance with Greenlandic authorities,\u201d the company\u2019s boss, Robert Price, said in a statement this month.<\/p>\n \u201cOperating in the Arctic requires patience, flexibility and a long-term perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Greenland Energy\u2019s constructive approach to Greenland has now taken a novel turn. Larry Swets Jr, the chairman, has written a 36-page memo arguing that the US should open the door to imports of Greenland\u2019s seal skins.<\/p>\n His white paper, titled \u201cSealskin Diplomacy\u201d and addressed to Trump\u2019s office and the state department, sets out how Washington could overturn a 54-year-old ban on Inuit-made seal pelts.<\/p>\n Swets calls it \u201ca measure Greenlanders themselves identify as a benefit, that costs almost nothing, that does not touch the constitutional question [of sovereignty], and that can be delivered with Danish cooperation rather than Danish permission\u201d.<\/p>\n But even if Greenland can be wooed diplomatically, the country\u2019s oil dowry may not come within any closer reach.<\/p>\n Dwayne Menezes, founder of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative think tank, says red tape is unavoidable in Greenland.<\/p>\n \u201cGreenland likes to say, \u2018We are open for business\u2019. But when they say they are less bureaucratic, in their minds they\u2019re comparing themselves with the rest of the Nordic region,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cCompared with, say, Australia, the US or the UK, they\u2019re tremendously bureaucratic.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/e142c943-2e1b-45b8-a7c0-3f0522ad8d60.jpeg\"\/)
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