They don't need to till all that land, nor to stand a border guard every 50 meters. They are gonna sustain themselves just as they were previously. You don't think they were doing nothing and all the food etc. were delivered from Denmark?

You might have missed some points.

Prime Minister Mute Egede:

“Cooperation is about dialogue. Cooperation means that you will work towards solutions,” he said.

Trump earlier this week refused to rule out using military or economic force in order to bring Greenland under US control. Trump said last month that “ownership and control” of Greenland was an “absolute necessity” for the US, as it seeks to counter growing Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic region.

Or Mexico, Canada and Greenland fighting over the territory that was formerly called the United States?

5D chess

This whole th8ng becomes way funnier when you realize that Trump doesn't understand derstand mercator projections and thinks there's a second America right off our coast nobody's using.

Do they want to slap a military base there or something?

Already done long ago, US military Thule base was illegally founded on the island in 1941-43 to the protests of Danish government. And of course the building of the base seen the local indigenous tribe forcibly relocated twice (leave it to the US to find some people to ethnically cleanse even in one of the most sparsely inhabited regions in the world). And the base is huge, at one point it had 10000 personnel though nowadays it's way less, possibly around 600.

Control of the northeast passage and minerals.

In 2018, Chinese specialists published a white paper showing how the Arctic waterways could be blended into the biggest trade project in world history: the Belt and Road Initiative. The arctic route was dubbed the “Polar Silk Road”.

Since then, the Chinese have been working quietly towards exploring this option with its neighbours in the colder parts of the world, Russia being the big one – literally and figuratively.

In November last year, China said that it had reached consensus with Russia on the aims of a joint committee on co-operation on a northern sea route for shipping trade. Co-operative work will make the area good for trade, good for safety, and good for learning more about the technology needed for polar exploration, China's new Transport Minister Liu Wei said at the time.

BYPASSING THE TROUBLE ZONES

Since then, other advantages of having a trade route through the cold north have emerged.

First, ships can bypass the Suez Canal in the Middle East, where Washington-backed Israel is actively engaged in battle with numerous neighbours, causing massive disruption to sea trade.

Second, ships can avoid Panama, which has been invaded by the US at least twice, and may receive another unwelcome "visit" from the north, judging by recent statements from the incoming US President.

A third factor is climate change. While there may be disputes about exactly how much they will effect waterside property prices on the Florida seafront, there is general agreement that the rapid melting of ice at the poles in recent years is not going to stop. The topology is set to change. And how can you respond to those changes without having people there?

A related fourth element is minerals – with treasures known and unknown in the cold climes, waiting to be dug up. The focus is on the likelihood of shifting ice patterns allowing access to unmined areas.

WHAT NEXT?

The sensible next stage would be for the world's top scientists, from China, Russia, and the west, to work together to monitor changes in Arctic ice thickness, and to jointly work out what's best for the area – as well as creating trade routes if they can be set up without doing harm to the area.

But that's unlikely to happen. The west has invested so much money, time and energy into demonising "the communists" that they will inevitably be drawn to use their standard "threat of war" narrative.

The Russians and Chinese will invade, they'll say, and possibly the Iranians and North Koreans too.

The astonishing success of the "imminent communist invasion" narrative everywhere from Australia to Sweden will embolden the Americans to churn it out again. If you can fool the Scandinavians, you can fool anyone.

Expect that narrative to drop within the next week or two.

some benefit if you do imperialism to Greenland?

Minerals and the US will be able to colonize Antarctica better in 2050.

Do they want to slap a military base there or something?

Pretty sure the US already has a base there, but it's mostly used to launch rockets