Trump covets rare earth riches, but Greenland plans to mine its own business

Washington Post

17 hours ago

July 27, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDT Just now
Trump covets rare earth riches, but Greenland plans to mine its own business
Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. for the best experience.
QAQORTOQ, Greenland — It is hard to miss, the looming mass of dark rock at the top of the fjord. There are circling ravens and towering waterfalls, but not a green thing growing on the outcrop. A Mordor vibe. The fisherman cuts the engine.
This magic mountain at the southern tip of Greenland contains one of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals on the planet, according to the company that owns the license to mine it. These are the exotic metals that make the 21st century what it is — the raw materials for war and peace, for electric vehicles and wind turbines, for laser-guided missiles and F-35 stealth fighters.
Interest in the island's untapped geological riches is soaring, driven in part by President Donald Trump, who has vowed that 'one way or another' the United States must 'get' Greenland, a semiautonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark.
Map 1: Map of Greenland depicting the inland ice sheet and general dimensions
North
Pole
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
CANADA
GREENLAND
(DENMARK)
Baffin
Bay
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Pole
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
CANADA
GREENLAND
(DENMARK)
Baffin
Bay
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Pole
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
CANADA
GREENLAND
(DENMARK)
Baffin
Bay
Reykjavík
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Pole
18th largest
island
GREENLAND
DENMARK
Reykjavík
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
CANADA
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
North
Pole
18th largest
island
GREENLAND
DENMARK
Reykjavík
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
CANADA
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
North
Pole
18th largest
island
GREENLAND
DENMARK
Reykjavík
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
CANADA
Map 2: Summer sea surface temperatures and population distribution along the island.
North
Pole
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
CANADA
Average
summer
sea surface
temperature
30°
60°F
Baffin
Bay
Places scaled
by population
size
Sisimiut
5,502
Tasiilaq
Total
population:
56,735
2,026
Nuuk
17,592
Paamiut
1,436
Atlantic
Ocean
Qaqortoq
3,111
North
Pole
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
CANADA
Average
summer
sea surface
temperature
30°
60°F
Baffin
Bay
Places scaled by
population size
Sisimiut
5,502
Tasiilaq
Total
population:
56,735
2,026
Nuuk
17,592
Paamiut
1,436
Atlantic
Ocean
Qaqortoq
3,111
North
Pole
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
CANADA
Average
summer
sea surface
temperature
30°
60°F
Baffin
Bay
Places scaled by
population size
Sisimiut
Reykjavík
5,502
Tasiilaq
Total
population:
56,735
2,026
Nuuk
17,592
Paamiut
1,436
Atlantic
Ocean
Qaqortoq
3,111
North
Pole
Ittoqqortoormiit
385
Total population:
383,726
Average summer
sea surface temperature
Reykjavík
30°
60°F
Qaanaaq
643
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Total population: 56,735
Places scaled by population size
Tasiilaq
Upernavik
2,026
1,076
Ilulissat
4,613
Aasiaat
3,079
Sisimiut
5,502
Maniitsoq
2,602
Paamiut
Qaqortoq
CANADA
Nuuk
1,436
3,111
17,592
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
North
Pole
Ittoqqortoormiit
385
Total population:
383,726
Average summer
sea surface temperature
Reykjavík
30°
60°F
Qaanaaq
643
Total population: 56,735
Places scaled by population size
Tasiilaq
Upernavik
2,026
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
1,076
Ilulissat
4,613
Aasiaat
3,079
Sisimiut
5,502
Maniitsoq
2,602
Paamiut
Qaqortoq
Nuuk
1,436
3,111
CANADA
17,592
Svalbard I.
(NOR.)
North
Pole
Ittoqqortoormiit
385
Total population:
383,726
Average summer
sea surface temperature
Reykjavík
30°
60°F
Qaanaaq
643
Total population: 56,735
Places scaled by population size
Tasiilaq
Upernavik
2,026
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
1,076
Ilulissat
4,613
Aasiaat
3,079
Sisimiut
5,502
Maniitsoq
2,602
Qaqortoq
Paamiut
Nuuk
3,111
1,436
CANADA
17,592
Greenland, the world's largest island, lies mostly inside the Arctic Circle; 80 percent of the island is covered in an ice sheet that on average is 1.4 miles deep.
Because of warmer Atlantic currents flowing into Baffin Bay, most people live on the island's west side. There are only 75 miles of roads. Most transport is by boat or aircraft.
Greenland's inland ice sheet holds 7 percent of the world's fresh water but has faced increased surface melting. Milder conditions could alter the coastal margin where ice, land and sea interact, exposing more bedrock to miners.
Greenland's mineral riches have long been known, but new interest in its largely untapped and hard-to-reach critical raw materials has highlighted its potential, especially at its southern tip.
Greenland wants to be a mining nation. But it's not much of one — not yet.
There are deposits of diamonds, graphite, lithium, copper, nickel, gallium, plus those rare earths with the sci-fi names — like dysprosium, neodymium and terbium.
A government-backed ruby mine here went bust. A long-running gold operation was open, then closed, and is now trying to reopen to capture a near-historic peak in the market. Greenland banned uranium mining in 2021; it is enmeshed in a billion-dollar lawsuit over the moratorium.
Companies have spent years prospecting, but the projects are seldom launched, because the markets are too soft or the costs too steep, to break ground in a frozen, roadless wilderness with pitiless winters and a tiny workforce.
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
'If you want to build a mine in Greenland, you have to build everything yourself,' said Bent Olsvig Jensen, a managing director at Lumina Sustainable Materials, the only mine now operating in Greenland, which employs fewer than 50 people to extract anorthosite, a silicate mineral — also found on the moon — used for making fiberglass and paints.
'In Greenland, only 1 in a 100 will succeed and they never talk about the 99,' Jensen said. 'No modern mine in Greenland has ever reached profitability.'
His goal? 'To break even next year.'
The Port of Qaqortoq, on the island's south.
The ship Arpaarti Arctica of the Royal Arctic Line delivers supplies to the village of Qassiarsuk. Most transport for towns in Greenland is by boat or aircraft.
Whatever the obstacles, Trump has gone full-tilt carrot-and-stick, alternatively threatening Denmark with punishing tariffs while promising to make Greenlanders 'rich.' He has not ruled out the use of military force.
Trump is not alone in his covetous gaze. Greenland sits in the middle of the North Atlantic, between Europe and America, whose industries hunger for the rare earth minerals now mostly controlled by China.
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
Like Trump, Greenlanders say they are looking for deals. If they are ever going to be able to afford their independence from Denmark, they know they need more than a prawn fishery to run a modern economy. They also want tourism and mining.
The newly elected prime minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, proclaims the island is 'open for business.' His mining minister told The Washington Post that Greenland is keen for European and American investment — and wary of the Chinese.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland's prime minister.
The slightly less hostile southern tip of the island has some of the greatest potential, but a visit makes clear why exploiting the area's riches will be difficult, with or without Trump's intervention.
An hour's boat ride up the fjords from Qaqortoq lies the site of the proposed Tanbreez mine, the name an acronym based on major materials contained in the intrusion — tantalum (Ta), niobium (Nb), rare earth elements (REE) and zirconium (Zr).
A satellite image of southern Greenland, showing the location of the Tanbreez deposit just north of Qorqotoq
Qaqortoq region
The average winter temperature is 23°F,
while the average summer temperature
ranges from 39°F to 50F.
Narsarsuaq
Detail
Qassiarsuk
Tanbreez
deposit
Igaliku
Narsaq
Qaqortoq
Saarloq
Access routes
The 100-meter-deep natural fjord at Tanbreez, which can contain icebergs, allows ships carrying up to 60,000 metric tons to reach the site.
15 MILES
Julianehåb Bay
Qaqortoq region
The average winter temperature is 23°F, while the average summer temperature ranges from 39°F to 50F.
Narsarsuaq
Detail
Qassiarsuk
Tanbreez
deposit
Igaliku
Narsaq
Qaqortoq
Saarloq
Access routes
The 100-meter-deep natural fjord at Tanbreez, which can contain icebergs, allows ships carrying up to 60,000 metric tons to reach the site.
15 MILES
Julianehåb Bay
Qaqortoq region
The average winter temperature is 23°F, while the average
summer temperature ranges from 39°F to 50F.
Narsarsuaq
Qassiarsuk
Tanbreez
deposit
Detail
Igaliku
Narsaq
Qorlortorsuaq
Hydroelectric
Dam
Power line
Qaqortoq
Eqalugaarsuit
Ammassivik
Saarloq
Ship access routes
Alluitsup
Paa
The 100-meter-deep natural fjord at Tanbreez, which can contain icebergs, allows ships carrying up to 60,000 metric tons to reach the site.
Julianehåb
Bay
Nanortalik
10 MILES
The purity and emptiness of the site would have looked familiar to the Viking explorer Erik the Red when he arrived here a millennium ago. There is nothing much altered by humans, except for a curious matrix of 440 small circular holes in the outcropping, left by diamond bits that drilled core samples in summers past.
The site of the proposed Tanbreez mine is largely unaltered, except for hundreds of small circular holes in the outcropping.
Cable used to detonate explosives at the Tanbreez mining site.
If the mine opens in the next year or two, as its Australian owners wager, all this could change — and so, too, might Greenland, a former colony sustained by the export of Atlantic cod and the import of Danish welfare services, home to just 57,000 people, most of them Arctic Inuit.
But the past indicates the odds of success might be long.
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
At last count, Greenland's mining ministry lists 67 active exploration licenses, held by both 'junior' outfits and major mining interests, which give an entity the right to poke holes in the ground and collect samples. Just eight companies hold permits for commercial mining. By comparison, there are 561 active mines in South Africa.
The White House says control of Greenland is imperative for U.S. national security. It has become clear the administration is especially focused on the establishment of a new secure supply chain for the critical materials the West needs to make advanced magnets and chips, used in MRI scanners, nuclear submarines and AI computers.
'Greenland is a wonderful place for geology, and it does have plenty of rare earths, which really aren't so rare, but they've been hard to exploit,' said Thomas Kokfelt, senior researcher at GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen, whose institute produces the most detailed maps of the ice-covered territory.
Rare earth core samples from the Tanbreez site.
Kokfelt said that Greenland has deposits of 25 of the 34 minerals considered critical by the European Union and more than two-thirds of the 50 metals deemed crucial by the United States. Geologists estimate that Greenland holds the eighth largest reserves of rare earth elements on the planet, tantalizingly close to U.S. shores.
Rare earths became the geopolitical 'it' minerals because today China holds a near-monopoly on them. China extracts an estimated 70 percent of those metals from its own mines and controls more than 90 percent of processing. China sent shock waves through global supply chains when in April — in response to Trump tariffs — it temporarily restricted exports of seven rare earths.
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
By comparison, the U.S. — which is a top 10 mining nation alongside China, Russia, Australia and Canada — has just one rare earth mine, on the California-Nevada border. Even there, nearly all the ore extracted from the Mountain Pass mine is shipped to China for processing. There are no rare earth mines in the European Union.
Greg Barnes is a 76-year-old geologist from Western Australia who first visited Tanbreez in 1992. 'I was hungover, that's the honest truth,' he told The Post, when he asked his buddy the helicopter pilot to land so he could relieve himself. He still remembers how the earth changed colors when he urinated, as the acidic stream struck the alkaline rock.
Barnes called it 'one of the top 10 places a geologist must see before he dies.'
Tanbreez just might make him rich.
Barnes spent $50 million and more than two decades exploring the site and seeking permission to mine it. He was finally awarded an exploitation license in 2020. He owes the government a plan for how the new mine will pay for its closure and cleanup when its shuts down. Barnes finds this funny because he believes the mine has enough minerals to operate for 1,000 years.
During the first Trump administration, his phone rang in the middle of the night in Perth. He was being invited to the White House. He hung up, thinking it a friend was pulling a prank.
As it turned out, Barnes briefed officials at the White House in 2019 about Greenland's mineral deposits. He never met Trump — but soon after his visit the president started talking about 'buying' Greenland.
A mountain next to the Tanbreez site.
This year, Barnes's outfit merged with a company called Critical Metals Corp., run by another high-flying Australian mineral investor named Tony Sage, former owner of the professional soccer team in Perth. Sage called his Tanbreez project 'a game-changing rare earth mine for the West.'
The deposit is immense: 15 square kilometers and 300 meters deep. The mine could be worth $3 billion in the initial phase, according to a preliminary economic assessment done by an independent contractor, who estimated it would cost $200 million to ready the site and begin to exploit it. There is no guarantee Sage can raise that much money.
To extract the minerals, Critical Metals will have to start from nothing. It must build an open pit quarry, roads, a processing plant, housing for 60 workers, alongside a floating deepwater port to handle the dozen cargo ships a year to ferry the minerals to Europe, North America or wherever.
A perspective map of the Tanbreez mining site
The potential open mining site is characterized by relatively high and steep mountains and the long, narrow Kangerluarsuk Fjord. The port and most infrastructure would be located near the head of the fjord.
3,448
feet
2,929
feet
Planned
roads
Upper pit
Plant site
Port
Lower pit
The lower pit would be
mined first. The upper
pit would not start until
more than five years
into operations.
The potential open mining site is characterized by relatively high and steep mountains and the long, narrow Kangerluarsuk Fjord. The port and most infrastructure would be located near the head of the fjord.
3,448
feet
2,929
feet
Planned
roads
Upper pit
Plant site
Lower
Port
pit
2,509 feet
The lower pit would be
mined first because of its proximity
to the coast and facilities.
Mining the upper pit would
not start until more than
five years into operations.
The landscape at the potential open mining site is characterized by relatively high and steep mountains and the long, narrow Kangerluarsuk Fjord. The port and most processing infrastructure would be located near the head of the fjord.
3,448 feet
Planned
roads
2,929 feet
Power line
The lower pit would be
mined first because of its
proximity to the coast and
facilities. Mining the upper pit
would not start until more than
five years into operations.
Upper pit
Plant site
Lower
pit
Port
2,509 feet
Kakortokite is a layered igneous rock that has high concentrations
of rare metals and rare earth elements. Unlike other similar deposits, Tanbreez has low levels
of radioactive elements.
The landscape at the potential open mining site is characterized by relatively high and steep mountains and the long, narrow
Kangerluarsuk Fjord. The port and most processing infrastructure would be located near the head of the fjord.
3,448 feet
The mining site lies
1.2 miles from existing
hydroelectric infrastructure.
Planned
roads
2,929 feet
Power line
The lower pit would be mined
first because of its proximity
to the coast and facilities.
Upper pit
Mining the upper pit would not
start until more than five years
into operations.
Plant site
Lower
pit
Port
2,509 feet
Waste rock (tailings)
would be hauled to
Fostersø Lake, which
is devoid of fish.
Kakortokite is a rare, layered igneous rock that has high concentrations of rare metals and rare earth elements. Unlike other similar deposits, Tanbreez has low levels of radioactive elements.
The landscape at the potential open mining site is characterized by relatively high and steep mountains and the long, narrow
Kangerluarsuk Fjord. The port and most processing infrastructure would be located near the head of the fjord.
3,448 feet
The mining site lies
1.2 miles from existing
hydroelectric infrastructure.
Planned
roads
Kakortokite is a layered igneous rock that has
high concentrations of
rare metals and rare earth elements. Unlike other similar deposits, Tanbreez
has low levels of radioactive elements.
2,929 feet
The lower pit would be mined first
because of its proximity to the coast
and facilities. Mining the upper pit
would not start until more than
five years into operations.
Power line
Upper pit
Plant site
Lower
pit
Port
2,509 feet
Waste rock (tailings) would
be hauled to Fostersø Lake,
which is devoid of fish.
The landscape at the potential open mining site is characterized by relatively high and steep mountains and the long, narrow
Kangerluarsuk Fjord. The port and most processing infrastructure would be located near the head of the fjord.
3,448 feet
The mining site lies
1.2 miles from existing
hydroelectric infrastructure.
Planned
roads
2,929 feet
Kakortokite is a layered igneous rock that has high concentrations of rare metals and rare earth elements. Unlike other similar deposits, Tanbreez has low levels of radioactive elements.
Power line
The lower pit would be mined first
because of its proximity to the coast
and facilities. Mining the upper pit
would not start until more than
five years into operations.
Upper pit
Plant site
Port
Lower
pit
2,509 feet
Waste rock (tailings) would
be hauled to Fosterso Lake,
which is devoid of fish.
Drew Horn, who served as chief of staff for the Office of International Affairs at the Energy Department during the first Trump administration, has visited the site. Horn is now CEO of a company called GreenMet, which calls itself 'the new American conduit between private capital, government, and critical mineral innovation.'
Sage and Barnes confirmed that U.S. officials — whom they declined to name — told Barnes he should not bring in Chinese partners.
Sage said he believes that Trump ultimately will get what he wants, which is not ownership of Greenland but favored access to mining deals that benefit U.S. manufacturers and defense contractors.
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
To that end, Sage's company in June received a 'letter of interest' from the U.S. Export-Import Bank for a loan of up to $120 million to fund the opening of Tanbreez. This would mark the Trump administration's first overseas investment in a mining project under the bank's new Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative, designed to compete with China by building markets for rare earth elements with 'trusted partner countries.'
Asked whether Critical Metals was an American company, Sage replied, 'That's a good question.' The company is traded on the Nasdaq and run by Australians, with additional funding from Wall Street investment banks, including Cantor Fitzgerald, he said. Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is a former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald; upon joining the administration he agreed to divest his business interests in his old company.
Fishermen in the Tunulliarfik Fjord. Southwestern Greenland, where the mine would be, supports a robust fishing industry as well as scattered sheep farms.
Cod in the fjord near the Tanbreez site.
The mine is in southwestern Greenland, which supports a robust fishing industry as well as scattered sheep farms. Even in such an isolated place, there is some opposition.
Asked whether he wanted to see mining on the Kangerluarsuk Fjord, the fisherman who ferried Post journalists to the site, Nuka Mark Nielsen, said simply: 'No.'
On a good day, working his baited longline, Nielsen can fill his boat with fat cod coming to spawn. The fjord supports 10 families, he said. He is worried the noise and the shipping will scare away the fish.
Two hours north by boat, outside the small settlement of Qassiarsuk, Sori Paviasen was working alongside her father-in-law, building a small house for her sister on a family farm with 440 sheep.
'Mining is good for the government, because they want the money,' Sori Paviasen said. 'But is it good for Greenland farmers?'
Paviasen said she is wary of the pollution that mining might bring. 'Mining is good for the government, because they want the money,' Paviasen said. 'But is it good for Greenland farmers?'
There were 31 sheep farms in southern Greenland a few years ago, she said. There are 25 now. The farmers are challenged by rising costs for imported feed and fertilizer, low lamb prices and extreme weather — more rain, early snow — brought on by climate change.
Greenland's mining minister, Naaja Nathanielsen, said in an interview that Greenland is 'a pro-mining country' and 'we are a pro-mining people,' that her government understands that the West needs a secure supply chain of rare earth metals, and that Greenland needs to develop its economy.
The village of Qassiarsuk, near the Tanbreeze mine.
There were 31 sheep farms in southern Greenland a few years ago, Paviasen said. There are 25 now.
The minister offered a pragmatic vision of Greenland.
'I do think in 20 years we will have six or seven active mines at any one time, a mix of smaller and bigger mines,' Nathanielsen said. 'We don't need to be the greatest mining country in the world. To run a small country and a small economy like ours, we need a good stable income over time that benefits the people and protects the environment.'
Karklis reported from Washington.
About this story
Map sources: March 2025 technical assessment report from Critical Metals Corp., Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Danish Climate Data Agency, Danish Mineral Resources Authority, qgreenland.org, National Snow and Ice Data Center, ArcticDEM-Polar Geospatial Center and ESA.