How much will Greenland cost Donald Trump? How much has US paid for territories in the past?

US President-elect Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to acquire Greenland.

Trump on Tuesday upped the ante when he refused to rule out the use of military or economic force to take the autonomous territory that belongs to Denmark – a US ally and a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).

“I’m not going to commit to that,” Trump said, when asked if he would rule out the use of the military. “It might be that you’ll have to do something…We need Greenland for national security purposes.”

But how much would it cost Trump to purchase Greenland, where the US has a large base? And how much has Washington paid for territories in the past?

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Let’s take a closer look:

How much would it cost?

CNN reported that the territory could have cost the US at least $1 billion (Rs 8,780 crore) in 2019.

A brief look at history here can be instructive.

As per Daily Mail, the US in 1946 considered buying Greenland for $100 million (Rs 878 crore) in gold.

Today, that would work out to around $1.6 billion (Rs 14,633 crore).

However, both those figures are substantially under Greenland’s GDP which stood at $3.24 billion (Rs 29,000 crore) in 2021.

As per CNN, the US purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million (Rs 200 crore) in gold.

Today, that would be around $600 million today (Rs 4,800 crore).

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As per Forbes, that deal was thought to be important because of the islands’ location – near the Panama Canal and American East Coast.

The US in 1803 also bought the Louisiana Territory – from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains – from France.

That transaction, known as the famous ‘Louisiana purchase,’ cost the United States $15 million (Rs 120 crore).

That sum would be around $418 million (Rs 3,344 crore) today.

But perhaps the most apt comparison would be the US purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.

The US paid $7.2 million (Rs 57.6 crore) for Alaska.

However, at the time the deal was widely dubbed ‘Seward’s folly’ by the US press after the then Secretary of State William Seward.

Today, the US would have to fork over around $150 million (Rs 1,200 crore) for Alaska.

But Seward had the last laugh after a huge gold deposit was found in the Yukon.

By World War II, Alaska was widely recognised as a key strategic asset.

What do experts say?

That the US would have to pay up – big time.

“The United States bought Alaska for peanuts in 1867 — about $125 million in today’s money. Greenland would be much more expensive to buy at a time of many other demands on the public purse,” Iwan Morgan, from the University College of London’s Institute of the Americas, told CNN Business.

“It’s not like buying a golf course where you go to an attorney and say ‘Can you sanction this?’” he said.

“Even if you got an agreement in principal, the price would be extremely high. If this were to go ahead, it’s going to be in the billions, possibly even trillions.”

Others say that Greenland is unlikely to return money on a huge investment – at least anytime soon.

The world’s largest island, Greenland sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans and is 80 per cent covered by an ice sheet.

The autonomous territory has some 56,000 residents, most of them Indigenous Inuit people.

As per CNN, the territory has a nine per cent unemployment rate and is heavily subsidised by Denmark.

Mining and quarrying employ just 124 people a month on average.

The island’s main industry is fishing.

Tim Boersma, a non-resident fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told CNN, “In terms of energy and mineral resources, Greenland is a country that is only marginally developed and misses the basic infrastructure to get large-scale projects off the ground.”

“It’s hard to believe that Trump is really that interested in energy and minerals. There’s very little exploratory work in Greenland. The conditions are harsh, with most of it covered in ice and snow.”

“The notion of purchasing Greenland from Denmark is based on an outdated, colonialist view of the autonomous, Inuit-majority territory,” Victoria Herrmann, president and managing director of the Arctic Institute think tank, told S. “If the United States is truly interested in increasing economic cooperation with Greenland, the administration should do some summer reading on its history and bring its requests to Nuuk — not Copenhagen.”

But Trump doesn’t seem deterred.

Trump on Wednesday told residents of Greenland that “we’re going to treat you well” as his oldest son visited the mineral-rich Danish territory that’s home to a large US military base.

This after he posted a video showing a TRUMP-emblazoned plane landing in Nuuk, the Arctic territory’s capital, in a landscape of snow-capped peaks and fjords.

“Don Jr and my Reps landing in Greenland,” Trump wrote. “The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” Supporters later posted video of Trump speaking by phone to locals.

In a statement, Greenland’s government said Donald Trump Jr’s visit was taking place “as a private individual” and not as an official visit, and Greenlandic representatives would not meet with him.

Mininguaq Kleist, permanent secretary of the ministry of statehood and foreign affairs, told said that authorities were informed that Trump Jr. would stay for about four to five hours. Neither Trump Jr.’s delegation nor Greenlandic government officials had requested a meeting, Kleist said.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday that the future of Greenland would be decided by Greenland, and called the United States Denmark’s most important ally. “Greenland is not for sale,” Frederiksen said, adding that “we need to stay calm and stick to our principles.”

The idea of the US purchasing Greenland — located near the North American landmass — is not new, with early attempts in the late 19th Century.

During his first term, Trump mused about purchasing Greenland. He cancelled a scheduled trip to Denmark in August 2019 after the prime minister dismissed the idea.

With inputs from agencies