Donald Trump will not be able to force Greenland to change ownership, a former top adviser to the US president has told the BBC.
IBM's vice chairman Gary Cohn, who advised Trump on the economy in his first term, said 'Greenland will stay Greenland' and linked the need for access to critical minerals to his former boss's plans for the territory.
Cohn is one of America's top tech bosses, a leader in the race to develop AI and quantum computing, and served under Trump as director of the White House National Economic Council.
In a sign of how seriously business leaders are taking the crisis, he warned 'invading an independent country that is part of NATO' would be 'over the edge'.
He suggested the president's recent comments about Greenland 'may be part of a negotiation'.
'I just came from a US congressional delegation meeting, and I think there's pretty uniform consensus with both Republicans and Democrats that Greenland will stay Greenland', he said.
Greenland would be happy for the US to increase its military presence on the island, he said, with the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean 'becoming much more of a military threat'.
The US could also negotiate an 'offtake' agreement for Greenland's vast yet largely untapped supplies of rare earth minerals, Cohn suggested.
'But I think invading a country that doesn't want to be invaded – that's part of a militaristic alliance, NATO – seems to me to be a little bit over the edge at this point', he said.
Cohn indicated the president may be overstating his demands as part of a negotiating tactic – something he says Trump has done successfully in the past.
'You’ve got to give Donald Trump some credit for the successes he's had and he's many times tried to overreach to get something in a compromise situation', he said.
'I think what he actually wants is a larger military presence and an offtake.'
The start of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos has been overshadowed by the president's increasingly aggressive stance on Greenland, causing alarm among political and business leaders.
Cohn also thinks that the president has become increasingly focused on the importance of rare earth minerals, noting that 'Greenland has quite a supply' of the resources, which are critical for the development of AI and quantum computing.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently refuted claims that Trump’s escalating threats about Greenland are related to not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, stating that the president sees Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States.
