Donald Trump is reportedly contemplating a bold strategy to gain control of Greenland by offering direct financial incentives to its residents.

According to sources familiar with the discussions, White House officials are exploring the possibility of providing payments ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per person as a means to persuade the population to support U.S. acquisition of the island, Reuters has learned.

Greenland, home to approximately 56,000 people, is currently a territory under the Kingdom of Denmark. Should this proposal materialize at the upper payment limit, the U.S. might potentially spend up to $5.6 billion to sway Greenlanders.

The specifics of how these payments would be implemented remain unclear, raising questions about the legality and feasibility of such a move to purchase the landmass.

This proposal sheds light on a possible U.S. strategy to acquire the island, despite Denmark’s firm stance against relinquishing its Arctic territory.

However, the Greenland government has unequivocally dismissed any notion of selling the island to the United States.

Both Denmark and Greenland leadership have repeatedly said the island is not and never will be for sale.

‘Enough is enough… No more fantasies about annexation,’ Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen wrote in a social media post on Sunday after Trump reupped the proposal this weekend.

Americans aren’t so set on Donald Trump taking military action or enacting regime change in Greenland despite the president making it clear that could be a next target after Venezuela

President Donald Trump says that the US needs Greenland for the sake of national security

Trump’s resurgence of interest in the world’s largest island – classified as so since Australia is a continent – came after the US capture and extradition of now-ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. 

The president had previously floated acquiring Greenland even before taking office for his second term, noting the strategic location and the ability for the US to provide more deterrence in the region against Russia and China. 

‘We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark isn’t going to be able to do it,’ Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.

He insisted: ‘It’s so strategic.’

Even if Trump did try to bribe Greenlanders with lump sum payments, it doesn’t appear he would be successful in swaying them.

A poll commissioned by two Danish newspapers in January 2025 – when Trump was going hard on his rhetoric of buying Greenland – showed that 85 percent of Greenlanders do not want to become part of the US.

Only 6 percent were in favor and 9 percent were undecided.

Over 88 percent of the less than 56,000 residents on the entire island are fully or partially Greenlandic Inuit. The rest are of white European descent, mostly Greenland Danes. 

The White House, when asked about the prospect of sending money directly to Greenlanders, referred Reuters to comments made by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday.

At her press briefing, Leavitt told reporters that Trump’s team was ‘looking at what a potential purchase would look like.’

And Rubio says he plans to meet with his Danish counterpart in Washington, DC next week to discuss the issue of Greenland.

Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland in March 2025 for a few hours to tour the US Pituffik Space Base as Trump continued to float the idea of acquiring Greenland to gain more control over the strategically placed Arctic island

Last year Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visited Greenland in March, and spent a few hours on the island touring a military base.

Vance warned reporters during that trip that the US has to ‘wake up’ to China and Russia’s threats in the region.

‘We can’t just bury our head in the sand,’ he said before quipping, ‘or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow.’

His visit came just two months after Donald Trump Jr. and now-deceased conservative luminary Charlie Kirk led a delegation to Greenland just days before Trump took office for his second term.