{"id":698175,"date":"2026-01-15T18:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/698175\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:10:10","slug":"how-a-billionaire-with-interests-in-greenland-encouraged-trump-to-acquire-the-territory-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/698175\/","title":{"rendered":"How a billionaire with interests in Greenland encouraged Trump to acquire the territory | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day during his first term, Donald Trump<\/a> summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. \u201cTrump called me down to the Oval Office,\u201d John Bolton, national security adviser in 2018, told the Guardian. \u201cHe said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an extraordinary proposal. And it originated from a longtime friend of the president who would go on to acquire business interests in the Danish territory.<\/p>\n

The businessman, Bolton learned, was Ronald Lauder. Heir to a makeup fortune \u2013 the global cosmetics brand Est\u00e9e Lauder \u2013 he had known Trump, a fellow wealthy New Yorker, for more than 60 years.<\/p>\n

Bolton said he discussed the Greenland proposition<\/a> with Lauder. After the billionaire\u2019s intervention, a White House team began to explore ways to increase US sway in the vast Arctic territory controlled by Denmark.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s renewed pursuit of Lauder\u2019s idea during his second term is typical of how the president operates, Bolton said. \u201cBits of information that he hears from friends, he takes them as truth and you can\u2019t shake his opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposal seems to have stirred Trump\u2019s imperialist ambitions: eight years on, he is mulling not just buying Greenland<\/a> but perhaps taking it by force.<\/p>\n

Like many of those around the president, Lauder\u2019s policy suggestions appear to intersect with his business interests. As Trump has ratcheted up his threats to seize Greenland, Lauder has acquired commercial holdings there. Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to demand a share of the war-torn country\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n

Lauder has said he met Trump in the 1960s when they went to the same prestigious business school. After working for the family cosmetics business, Lauder served under Ronald Reagan at the Pentagon, then as ambassador to Austria, before running unsuccessfully for mayor of New York in 1989.<\/p>\n

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When Trump won the presidency in 2016, Lauder donated $100,000 to the Trump Victory fundraising committee. When Trump\u2019s sanity was questioned in 2018, Lauder called him \u201ca man of incredible insight and intelligence\u201d.<\/p>\n

That same year, Lauder said he was assisting<\/a> Trump with \u201csome of the most complex diplomatic challenges imaginable\u201d. This seems to have included sowing the idea of Arctic expansion. The following year, the Wall Street Journal revealed<\/a> Trump\u2019s interest in Greenland. Denmark\u2019s rulers expressed outrage. Trump responded by tweeting an image<\/a> of a golden Trump Tower looming over a village, beside the caption: \u201cI promise not to do this to Greenland!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A treasure trove of rare-earth elements\u2019\u2018Trump\u2019s Greenland concept was never absurd \u2013 it was strategic,\u2019 Lauder wrote. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s fixation with Greenland endured, as did Lauder\u2019s. Last February, shortly after Trump returned to the White House, Lauder leapt to his defence when the president publicly contemplated a military takeover of the world\u2019s largest island.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s Greenland concept was never absurd \u2013 it was strategic,\u201d Lauder wrote<\/a> in the New York Post. He went on: \u201cBeneath its ice and rock lies a treasure trove of rare-earth elements essential for AI, advanced weaponry and modern technology. As ice recedes, new maritime routes are emerging, reshaping global trade and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Greenland at \u201cthe epicentre of great-power competition\u201d, Lauder argued, the US should seek a \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d. He added: \u201cI have worked closely with Greenland\u2019s business and government leaders for years to develop strategic investments there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Lauder steered Trump\u2019s attention to Greenland in 2018, as first reported<\/a> by the US journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book The Divider, the cosmetics billionaire seems to have ploughed lots of his own money into the Arctic territory.<\/p>\n

Danish corporate records show that a company with a New York address and unnamed owners has in recent months bought into Greenland.<\/p>\n

One of its ventures is exporting \u201cluxury\u201d springwater from an island in Baffin Bay. When a Danish newspaper<\/a> reported in December that Lauder was among the investors, it quoted a Greenlandic businessman involved in the endeavour. \u201cLauder and his colleagues in the investor group have a very good understanding of and access to the luxury market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This group of investors is also reportedly seeking to generate hydroelectric power from Greenland\u2019s biggest lake for an aluminium smelter.<\/p>\n

It is unclear what effect a US takeover of Greenland \u2013 by invasion, purchase or persuasion \u2013 might have on Lauder\u2019s commercial interests there.<\/p>\n

Following Trump\u2019s comments \u2013 in the aftermath of sending troops to capture the ruler of Venezuela \u2013 that the US needed Greenland \u201cvery badly\u201d, Denmark\u2019s prime minister warned<\/a> that military action by one Nato member against another would break the alliance.<\/p>\n

Trump appears unmoved. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be doing something with Greenland,\u201d he said last week, \u201ceither the nice way or the more difficult way.\u201d After a White House meeting on Wednesday, the Danish foreign minster, Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen, said: \u201cWe didn\u2019t manage to change the American position. It\u2019s clear that the president has this wish of conquering Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

A deal to exploit Ukraine\u2019s mineralsDonald Trump in a heated exchange with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February 2025. Photograph: Abaca\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Lauder\u2019s apparent involvement in shaping US policy adds to mounting questions about conflicts of interest during Trump\u2019s second term and the apparent self-enrichment of those close to the president. Trump\u2019s two elder sons, Don Jr and Eric, have been on a global moneymaking campaign<\/a> from Vietnam to Gibraltar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They insist there is a \u201chuge wall\u201d between their business activities and their father\u2019s position as the most powerful man alive. Trump\u2019s spokesperson has said: \u201cNeither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.\u201d But foreign rulers have facilitated the enrichment of the first family, while sometimes seemingly securing the president\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

Lauder, though, appeared for a time to have broken<\/a> with his old friend.<\/p>\n

In 2022, while he was out of office, Trump hosted the far-right agitator Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago club. Lauder, who heads the World Jewish Congress, joined the condemnation. \u201cNick Fuentes is a virulent antisemite and Holocaust denier plain and simple,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cIt is inconceivable that anyone would associate with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

But once Trump regained the White House, Lauder resumed financial support. In March 2025 he gave $5m to Maga Inc, a fundraising operation<\/a> for Trump\u2019s movement. The following month, Lauder was reportedly among the guests at an exclusive candlelit dinner<\/a> with the president. Tickets were $1m each, payable to Maga Inc.<\/p>\n

By then, Lauder\u2019s business interests once again appeared to be overlapping with Trump administration<\/a> policy.<\/p>\n

A leaked November 2023 letter<\/a> sent by the head of TechMet, a mining company, to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine\u2019s president, named Lauder as part of a consortium hoping to exploit a lithium deposit in the war-torn country.<\/p>\n

Lauder said at the time that he had not discussed Ukrainian minerals with Trump himself but had \u201craised the issue with stakeholders in the US and Ukraine<\/a> for many years up to the present day\u201d. Leading Republicans joined a campaign for the US to gain a hold on Ukraine\u2019s prodigious resources. Trump became its loudest proponent.<\/p>\n

Weeks after Lauder\u2019s Maga Inc donations, Washington and Kyiv signed a deal to jointly exploit Ukraine\u2019s minerals. It went some way to preserving Trump\u2019s support for Ukraine following his televised Oval Office tirade against Zelenskyy for what he deemed insufficient gratitude for US backing.<\/p>\n

The lithium deposit was the first to be tendered under the minerals deal. This month, the Lauder consortium reportedly won it<\/a>. TechMet, the company leading the consortium, declined to comment, as did Lauder. His Greenland business partners and the White House did not respond when contacted by the Guardian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day during his first term, Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. \u201cTrump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-698175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115900463569882421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}