President Donald Trump has justified his unchecked aggression in pursuit of “owning” Greenland as necessary both to defend against Russia and China and to gain unfettered access to Greenland’s supply of minerals and natural resources. The Trump administration’s designs on Greenland amount to little more than attempts at resource seizure in what’s becoming a pattern for the administration, mere weeks after the U.S. military was deployed to oust Venezuela’s leader and seize control of the country’s oil. In Trump’s push to gain control of Greenland—an autonomous territory of Denmark located in the Arctic, where the U.S. military is already granted a great deal of access through the Danish-American defense pact—he has failed to identify the source of his urgency: climate change.
The Arctic region is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world due to climate change. The resulting decline in sea ice has made navigating the Arctic Ocean easier, enabling an uptick in activity in the region, with a 37 percent increase in ships recorded in the Arctic over the past 10 years. While Trump denies the existence of climate change, calling it “perhaps the greatest hoax in history” in his recent speech in Davos, Switzerland, his fixation on Greenland reinforces that climate change threatens American security.
Climate change in the Arctic is a security threat to the United States
Global temperatures are on the rise: The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record. In particular, the Arctic region, a delicate ecosystem that is primarily ocean and a thin layer of ice, is warming much faster than the rest of the world due to increased ocean temperatures and the feedback loop created when less ice is present to reflect solar energy back to space—among other factors that, together, are referred to as “Arctic amplification.” This rapid temperature rise has ramifications for the region but also for the rest of the world—including more severe winter weather in the Northern Hemisphere, sea level rise, and an increase in wildfires in the Arctic, which has contributed to poor air quality as far away as New York City.
The Arctic’s location makes its rapid warming consequential for U.S. security. The most direct path between the United States and rivals such as Russia and China is through the Arctic region, which is why defense agreements with Greenland have long been strategically important for missile defense, aerospace control, and maritime warning capabilities. As the region warms and sea ice cover declines, maritime routes become more navigable. This has led to an increase in the presence of both military and civilian vessels in the Arctic Ocean, ranging from submarines to icebreakers to fishing vessels. The region could experience ice-free summers as soon as the 2030s, which would only further this trend. With more activity comes the risk of mistakes and misunderstandings that could easily escalate, particularly between geopolitical rivals. The destabilizing force of climate change threatens to heighten existing geopolitical tensions and trigger direct confrontation. The U.S. Department of Defense is well aware of these risks: The 2022 National Defense Strategy identified the Arctic as a “new [corridor] of strategic interaction” due to climate change, and other studies have sought to better understand how climate change could exacerbate threats in the Arctic.
Governance of the region is made up of a patchwork of international law, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and national laws from the eight Arctic countries—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. Yet NATO and the Arctic Council provide historically effective multilateral forums for countries to peacefully and collaboratively provide security and jointly govern the region, respectively. For decades, the United States has successfully worked within these frameworks to ensure American security in the Arctic. Seizing Greenland through force or coercion would only shatter the high-trust alliance built with European partners and impede NATO’s ability to deter potential threats from geopolitical rivals.
See also
The Trump administration’s assault on international climate action puts America at even greater risk
Despite the clear, established threat that climate change in the Arctic—and beyond—poses to American security, the Trump administration has halted all U.S. international climate action and sought to block global action on climate change at every opportunity, putting Americans at risk.
On day one of his second term, President Trump directed the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement—the international climate accord that provides a framework for international collaboration to fight climate change—making the United States the only country to ever withdraw from the agreement (and for the second time no less, as Trump had withdrawn the United States during his first term as well). His administration has also employed threats to derail the adoption of shipping regulations designed to curb emissions at the International Maritime Organization. And earlier this year, Trump directed the U.S. withdrawal from 66 international organizations, including the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and other organizations focused on accelerating international climate action.
At the same time, Trump has used his speeches at high-level gatherings of world leaders, such as the U.N. General Assembly and the World Economic Forum, to rail against clean energy and chastise nations that have elected to transition to cleaner sources of energy. Furthermore, he has peddled fossil fuels to international partners, tying the purchase of U.S. liquefied natural gas to favorable tariff rates, and has promised to revitalize Venezuela’s relatively defunct oil industry, putting the United States out of step with the vast majority of the world.
By allowing anti-climate ideology to drive U.S. policy on climate change instead of facts, the Trump administration is actively acting against the interests of Americans.
Despite years of study demonstrating the threat that climate change poses to U.S. national security, climate denialism has also been a feature of the Department of Defense under Secretary Pete Hegseth. In April 2025, Hegseth signed a memorandum that announced he was cutting funding for climate programs at the department; and weeks later, the secretary of the Navy announced he was rescinding the Biden administration’s climate action plan—which explicitly studied climate threats in the Arctic. The 2026 National Defense Strategy makes no mention of the climate whatsoever, though it does outline the need for military options to secure territory near the Arctic.
By allowing anti-climate ideology to drive U.S. policy on climate change instead of facts, the Trump administration is actively acting against the interests of Americans. Rather than treating climate change as a long-term threat to national and global security that requires allies to work together, the administration is alienating America’s closest allies and emboldening authoritarian leaders around the world to similarly lay claim to territory of value to them. This failure to address climate change is putting Americans at risk of deadlier storms, extreme heat, and flooding, while also exacerbating the risk of great power conflict, including in the Arctic, making the United States weaker in the process.
Conclusion
In singling out access to Greenland as a key strategic and defense priority, the Trump administration is signaling the critical role climate change plays in national security. Yet by dismantling U.S. climate policy, derailing international climate negotiations, and undermining the strategic planning of the Department of Defense in response to climate change, the administration is directly working against ensuring America’s security. Advancing global climate action, not threatening to take over an allied nation, will lead to a more secure America.
The author would like to thank Allison McManus, Frances Colón, Robert Benson, Shannon Baker-Branstetter, Trevor Higgins, and Kate Petosa for their contributions to this analysis.