Can Geopolitics Unlock Greenland’s Rare Earths?

For several months, the world asked about the declared goal of the president US To acquire Greenland. Is it just expressing the desire to make America more again in the regional region? Is it the issue of a security policy? Or is critical minerals-especially the rare Greenland wealth-is a major factor?

The first two questions cannot be answered without a complete understanding of the administration’s motives and strategies, which is currently available publicly. But for this third question, there is a wealth of data and context, historical and modern.

Let’s start with the modern era. American industries, like the industries of any advanced economy, depend on critical materials. A lot of attention now focuses on RareA group of unusual importance elements due to its lack of ambiguity in the basic commercial, defense and industrial applications. Almost 90 percent of the rare treated land comes from ChinaCreate weaknesses in the supply chain that many countries are now trying to avoid, especially since then China has declared restrictions On the export of rare heavy land in April 2025. Systematic studies She indicated this Greenland has 10 important deposits Rare land elements.

But in mining, it is important details. To understand the value of mineral deposit, it is important that Looking at history To verify reality from documented resources. The facts and conclusions are always not always reaching decision makers, investors and media.

Greenland It is the largest island in the world, but it is not as large as you think

Greenland is the largest island in the world, but people often get an exaggerated impression on the extent of its size due to the fact that the projection of Mercator is commonly used distorts the size of the ground mass near the columns. Greenland is about two million square kilometers. However, the ice-free part-which can be extracted more than the other part-is approximately size CaliforniaAnd without any fast, coastal ways. Traveling between settlements is only possible by boat or plane.

Greenland had nine different mines since World War II, but only one, for minerals AnthositeToday. Another one, l goldIt is expected to reach full production later this year.

Greenland’s only full practical mine starts from May 2025 extracts rock rocks at a site called White Mountain, on the western western coast of the island.Flemming Getreuer Christiansen

Greenland took over all mining licenses from Denmark In 1998 and the full power in 2010 the autonomy was presented. Greenland has developed a modern mining licensing system with an element of competition between companies and transparent procedures for public inputs on environmental, social and economic concerns. The number of licenses granted by the government has been a relatively high and relatively stable for many years, but the level of actual activities, such as drilling, has been low over the past decade. Several licenses have been eliminated or canceled without any mining at all.

The reasons are many. Specialization is the lack of human resources. The Greenland population is only 57,000, scattered around a three times the size of Texas. Another reason is the high operational costs due to the harsh climate and infrastructure lack. Others include restrictions in favor of work from Greenland or Denmark. Others still confuse modern bureaucratic changes in the legal framework of mining related to resource evaluation requirements, feasibility studies, environmental, social and economic requirements to obtain an exploitation license. The complex plans of kings and the relatively high corporate taxes contribute to uncertainty and risks that many investors were not unwilling to take. This is at a time when Greenland strongly needs investments to feed her dreams in economic and political independence from Denmark.

In the summer of 2021, the Greenland government said no to issue more Petroleum licenses. It does not matter much because by the time, they are all the largest Oil and gas The companies had already left Greenland as a result of the decline in oil prices and increased costs caused by the changing regulations. Since the 1970s, about 40 companies participated, but they dug only 15 wells of exploration and have not made any commercial discoveries.

Ivittuut mine, which was seen here in 1953, extracted huge amounts of cellulite during World War II. Ivittuut was one of the few places in the world known to have Cryolite deposits, which was necessary for aluminum smelting. The mine was closed in 1987.Kaj Sornsen/Danish North Pole institute

However, there were some commercial activities. During World War II, Ivittuut mines In southern Greenland, Cryolite was produced to produce aluminum and was decisive in the American war effort. Since that time, only American companies have shown modest interest in Greenland; Of a total of 250 companies granted exploration licenses over the past few decades, it has been 10 American. Of 50 companies from different countries that were dug in Greenland, four of the United States, and among the 15 companies applied for an exploitation license, were specifically American. Historically, the US imprint in Greenland’s metal exploration is almost not remembered although the door is open for decades.

The sediments are large, but they have low concentrations of rare Earth elements

According to the European UnionGreenland has a very indescribable possibility for 25 of 34 minerals identified in the official list of federation raw materials, including rare ground elements, GraphiteMinerals, platinum group, and niobium. Consider in detail, however, a more complex image appears. In 2023, investigationto Mineral and Materials Center Subordinate Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland I found that Greenland’s metal resources included everything from simple events to large deposits spread throughout the island.