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Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
More than 200 scientists have signed a letter condemning U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland.
“Greenland’s scientists and citizens have made enormous contributions to the world’s understanding of the Arctic and how rapid Arctic changes are affecting people around the world,” the letter reads. “To Greenlanders: Qujanaq, and we stand with you.”
It follows another letter issued in February 2025, which called the effort “a dangerous distraction from the urgent work of addressing environmental change impacts to U.S. citizens.”
The president first expressed interest in buying Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, in 2019, during his first term in office, and has mentioned it throughout his second term. The campaign for the acquisition has intensified in the wake of the United States’ seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Related
• Letter from US Researchers in Support of Greenland’s Self-Governance and Autonomy
• Statement From U.S. Scientists in Solidarity With Greenland
• Why Greenland Is Indispensable to Global Climate Science
Greenland is rich in oil and in minerals such as lithium, copper, and rare earths. However, Malte Humpert, founder and senior fellow at The Arctic Institute, told CNN that the idea of extensive rare earth mining on the island is “completely bonkers.”
“You might as well mine on the Moon,” he said. “In some respects, it’s worse than the Moon.”
Greenland is also strategically located between the North American and Eurasian Arctic. Its northwest coast is also home to the U.S. Pituffik Space Base.
“If we don’t take Greenland, Russia or China will take Greenland, and I am not going to let that happen,” Trump told reporters on 11 January from Air Force One. “One way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland … They need us much more than we need them.”
“Times have changed since Inuit lands were mere commodities that could be bought and sold,” wrote Sara Olsvig, Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar in a January 2025 statement. “In today’s world, we are active participants in decision-making about our lands and resources. We are beyond the times of typical colonial attitudes of superiority.”
In a LinkedIn post last week, Greenland’s prime minster, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, called the rhetoric “totally unacceptable” and “disrespectful.” A statement issued by the leaders of several European countries affirmed that “Greenland belongs to its people.”
Greenland is a critical location for climate science research, and many researchers have expressed concerns about how a U.S. takeover could affect this international scientific enterprise.
“Anything that injures our long-standing friendly relationship with Greenland is also an injury to science,” Yarrow Axford, a paleoclimatologist and one of the creators of the letter, wrote in an email to Eos. “There’s so much climate science and other important work that can only be done in Greenland, and only in partnership with Greenland’s people. I hope we can all weather this latest storm together.”
Mia Tuccillo, a paleolimnologist and Arctic scientist who is advised by Yarrow and also helped author the letter, wrote in an email to Eos that the research collaborations between the two nations are relatively new, and are delicate because of the history of U.S. intervention in Greenland.
“The statements by our government and by Trump that challenge Greenland’s sovereignty directly threaten these new priorities and collaborations—things that have greatly revolutionized and improved the ethos of geosciences—and things that are still very new and very, very valuable,” Tuccillo wrote.
“A unilateral US takeover threatens to disrupt the open scientific collaboration that is helping us understand the threat of global sea-level rise,” wrote glaciologist Martin Siegert in The Conversation.
The U.S. scientists behind the letter also issued a statement expressing solidarity with Greenland. Many shared (unattributed) personal messages at the end of the letter.
“Greenland is a unique culture and a critical part of the earth’s climate system, not a pawn in a real estate deal,” wrote one scientist.
“Without the help, knowledge, and skills of people in Greenland, we would have never been able to even reach our field site let alone conduct our research. When Greenlanders lead the way, our science improves and becomes more useful and relevant to both local and the international communities,” wrote another.
—Emily Gardner (@emfurd.bsky.social), Associate Editor
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correctly differentiate between the letters issued in February 2025 and January 2026.
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