Analysis of: US envoy says deal on Greenland ‘should and will be made’ - Europe live
The Guardian | January 16, 2026
The intensifying US push to acquire Greenland reveals fundamental contradictions within the Western capitalist alliance system. While framed as a security concern regarding Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic, the material basis of this conflict lies in Greenland's vast reserves of rare earth minerals, energy resources, and newly accessible shipping routes created by climate change. US Special Envoy Jeff Landry's assertion that a deal 'should and will be made' despite Danish refusal exposes the coercive nature of relations even among nominal allies when strategic resources are at stake. The article captures a striking moment where the interests of different capitalist states—ostensibly unified under NATO—come into open conflict. Democratic Senator Shaheen's observation that Trump's rhetoric 'plays right into the hands' of Russia and China while simultaneously acknowledging that 86% of Americans oppose military force reveals the deep contradictions facing US imperialism: the need to maintain alliance cohesion for great power competition while pursuing unilateral resource acquisition. Italy's dismissive response to European military deployment ('It sounds like the beginning of a joke') and France's warning about trade retaliation demonstrate that European states recognize this as inter-imperialist competition disguised as collective security. Perhaps most revealing is the ideological work being performed by both sides. The US delegation frames its visit as 'appreciation for Denmark's role in national security' while the administration simultaneously demands territorial concession. Meanwhile, Italy's Meloni calls for NATO 'coordination' while her defense minister dismisses actual European action. This gap between diplomatic rhetoric and material interests illustrates how the superstructure of international institutions increasingly fails to contain the competitive logic of capitalist accumulation in an era of declining US hegemony and intensifying resource competition.
Class Dynamics
Actors: US state apparatus (Trump administration, State Department, Congress), European state actors (Denmark, Italy, France governments), Greenlandic political representatives, NATO as institutional apparatus of collective Western capital, Russian and Chinese states as rival imperialist powers, Extractive industry capital (implied beneficiaries of mineral access), Greenlandic population (largely absent from discussion)
Beneficiaries: US-based extractive industries seeking Arctic mineral access, Defense contractors anticipating Arctic military buildup, Finance capital positioning for Arctic shipping route development, Political elites using external conflicts to deflect domestic discontent
Harmed Parties: Greenlandic indigenous population whose self-determination is treated as secondary, Danish workers whose government faces coercion from nominal ally, US working class distracted from cost-of-living crisis, Global working class facing intensified great power competition
The article reveals a hierarchy within the Western alliance where US state power attempts to subordinate even allied European states when resource interests are at stake. Denmark, despite formal sovereignty, faces pressure from both diplomatic channels and implied military threat. Greenland's semi-autonomous government is positioned as an object of negotiation rather than a subject with genuine self-determination. The bipartisan US congressional visit attempts to perform 'good cop' to Trump's coercion, revealing how different factions of the ruling class coordinate alliance management.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Rare earth minerals critical for advanced technology and weapons production, Opening of Arctic shipping routes due to climate change, Energy resources in Arctic territories, Strategic military positioning in great power competition, Control over supply chains for green technology transition
The conflict centers on control over means of production that will be essential for 21st century capitalism: rare earth minerals for electronics and renewable energy, shipping routes that could reshape global trade, and energy resources. Current production relations leave these resources under Danish/Greenlandic sovereignty, but US capital seeks to restructure this arrangement. The emphasis on 'critical minerals' reveals how green capitalism's resource demands create new arenas for imperialist competition.
Resources at Stake: Rare earth mineral deposits, Arctic shipping route control, Military base positioning (Pituffik Space Base), Oil and natural gas reserves, Strategic territorial control over emerging trade routes
Historical Context
Precedents: US purchase of Alaska from Russia (1867), Previous US attempts to purchase Greenland (1946, 2019), 19th century Monroe Doctrine assertions over Western Hemisphere, Scramble for Africa and colonial resource extraction, Post-WWII US construction of global military base network
This episode represents a continuation of capitalist imperialism's drive to control strategic resources and territory, now intensified by the declining relative position of US hegemony and the rise of multipolar competition. The Arctic has become a new frontier for inter-imperialist rivalry as climate change makes previously inaccessible resources extractable. The willingness to threaten nominal allies reflects what Lenin identified as imperialism's tendency toward conflict even among capitalist powers during periods of crisis and transition.
Contradictions
Primary: The US requires alliance cohesion (NATO) to compete with Russia and China, yet its unilateral pursuit of Greenland undermines the very alliance structure it depends upon—weakening collective Western power while seeking to strengthen individual US control.
Secondary: Climate change creates new resource opportunities while representing systemic threat to capitalist accumulation, Democratic rhetoric of self-determination conflicts with actual treatment of Greenland as tradeable territory, US claims to defend international order while threatening to violate territorial sovereignty, Trump's 'America First' nationalism conflicts with maintenance of global empire, European states criticize US aggression while depending on US security architecture
These contradictions are unlikely to find stable resolution within the current framework. Either US hegemony reasserts itself through successful coercion (damaging alliance legitimacy), European states develop independent capacity (fragmenting NATO), or the contradictions deepen into open inter-imperialist conflict. Senator Shaheen's hope that 'saner heads will prevail' reflects liberal faith in institutional management of contradictions that are fundamentally structural. The working group's immediate collapse over basic terms suggests diplomatic management is already failing.
Global Interconnections
The Greenland crisis connects directly to the broader reorganization of global capitalism in the 21st century. The article's mention of Ukraine, Bulgaria's political instability, and Russian hybrid warfare operations (Lithuanian arson attempts) reveals an interconnected system under stress. The Arctic emerges as a concentrated arena where climate crisis, great power competition, resource scarcity, and alliance fractures converge. Zelenskyy's parallel pursuit of US security guarantees at Davos shows how peripheral states must navigate between competing imperial powers. The emphasis on Russia and China as threats serves ideological functions—justifying military buildup and disciplining allies—while obscuring that the primary competition is between capitalist powers over accumulation opportunities. Russia's ironic support for Danish sovereignty exposes the opportunistic nature of all parties' commitments to international law. The crisis also reveals how domestic political contradictions (Trump's need to distract from cost-of-living failures and the Epstein files) drive international aggression, demonstrating the interpenetration of domestic class struggle and imperialist foreign policy.
Conclusion
The Greenland crisis illuminates how inter-imperialist contradictions intensify as the post-WWII US-led order fragments. For working-class movements, this presents both dangers and opportunities. The danger lies in nationalist mobilization for great power competition, drawing workers into supporting 'their' state's imperial ambitions. The opportunity emerges from the exposure of ruling-class rhetoric: when the US threatens allies over resources while claiming to defend democracy, the ideological legitimacy of the entire alliance system erodes. The Greenlandic population's near-total absence from these elite negotiations—despite nominal discussion of their territory's future—exemplifies how self-determination remains subordinate to capital's requirements. Genuine solidarity requires opposing all imperialist powers' claims while supporting the self-determination of colonized peoples like Greenlanders, whose interests align neither with Copenhagen, Washington, nor the extractive industries circling their homeland.
Editorial Note: This analysis applies a dialectical materialist framework to news events. It represents one interpretive perspective and should not be considered objective reporting.
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