President Donald Trump’s push for mineral rights in Greenland may be the latest play in longstanding U.S. efforts to block China from accessing rare earths on the world’s largest island.
Trump has disclosed few details about the Greenland framework deal that he announced after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday. But he told CNBC that it includes mineral rights for the U.S. and other partners, presumably NATO allies though it’s unclear at this stage.
“They’re going to be involved in the Golden Dome, and they’re going to be involved in mineral rights, and so are we,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The Trump administration declined requests for further information when asked by CNBC. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “as details are finalized by all parties involved, they will be released accordingly.”
“If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever,” Kelly said in a statement.
Rare earths are used to make magnets that are key inputs for strategic industries like defense and robotics. China dominates the global supply chain and blocked exports in trade disputes with the U.S. last year.
Beijing declared itself a “near-Arctic state” and regional stakeholder in 2018.
Trump has made developing a Western rare earth supply chain a central objective of his industrial policy as he seeks to reduce U.S. dependence on China. Greenland has the eighth largest rare earth reserves in the world at 1.5 million tons, according to 2024 data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Beijing has a financial interest in the Kvanefjeld mining project in Greenland’s south. It is the third-largest known land deposit of rare earths in the world, according the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
China’s Shenghe Resources is the second-largest investor in Kvanefjeld’s owner, Australia’s Energy Transition Minerals. The project came to a halt after Greenland banned uranium mining in 2021 and it is now mired in litigation.
A framework that provides the U.S. with priority access to Greenland’s rare earths “might ensure that a Chinese partner or somebody else doesn’t come back to the table to develop those resources,” said Ryan Castilloux, founder of Adamas Intelligence, a rare earths market research firm.
Greenland’s resources
A second project called Tanbreez is under development in Greenland’s south by New York City headquartered Critical Metals. The company has described Tanbreez as one of the largest rare earth deposits in the world.
Critical Metals received a letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States earlier this month that could result in a $120 million loan for the development of Tanbreez. The company’s stock rallied about 21% Thursday and has nearly tripled in value this year.
The Biden administration was also worried about China gaining access to Greenland’s rare earths. It lobbied the developer Tanbreez Mining to not sell the project to a China-linked company, CEO Greg Barnes told Reuters in January 2025. Tanbreez was ultimately acquired by Critical Metals.
Economic challenges
Trump said at Davos that his push for Greenland is not about extracting rare earths. He has said U.S. interests in Greenland are about blocking China’s and Russia’s ambitions in the Arctic.
“I want Greenland for security. I don’t want it for anything else,” Trump told reporters Wednesday before meeting with the NATO chief. “We have so much rare earth, we don’t know what to do with it. We don’t need it for anything else.”
The pipeline for rare earth supplies is full after the U.S. made significant progress in standing up its supply chain over the past year, Castilloux said. The Pentagon struck an agreement last year with rare earth miner MP Materials that included an equity stake, price floor and offtake agreement.
Supplies from Greenland are not needed in the near term, though that could change over a longer time horizon, Castilloux said.
The economics of mining in Greenland are challenging, the analyst said. The island’s remote location and infrastructure gaps would mean higher development costs, he said. Greenland’s small population means at least some of the skilled workforce would have to be flown in and out. Shipping costs would also be higher, he said.
Trump was blunt Wednesday about the cost of rare earth mining in Greenland.
“In terms of Greenland, you know, you have to go 25 feet down through ice to get it,” Trump said. “It’s not something that a lot of people are going to do or want to do.”
“No, this is security we’re talking about,” he said.
