- Danish authorities protested after reports of a covert influence operation linked to Trump associates
- But the US report said three Trump allies openly engaged in pro-US activities in Greenland for years
- Trump sought to assert US dominance over Greenland despite it being a NATO ally
Last year, Denmark's national broadcaster reported that three people linked to US President Donald Trump had been running a covert influence operation in Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Without naming the three men, the report claimed they were compiling names of pro-American Greenlandic citizens who supported Trump's plans to take over the island and who might be willing to join a secessionist movement.
Soon after the report was aired, Copenhagen had summoned the top American diplomat to protest about the trio, who were apparently close to Trump. Now, a new report has claimed that the pro-Trump activities at the center of the mystery were less covert and more the quite open blend of business and foreign policy that defines the Trump administration's approach to the world.
A report by The New York Times has identified three Trump allies—Drew Horn, a former Green Beret; Thomas Dans, an Arctic adviser to the Republican president; and Chris Cox, the founder of an organisation called Bikers for Trump-- who have frequented the Danish territory and have been under the radar of authorities.
All three men, according to the report, had been involved in the very public pro-US activities in Greenland for years and had made public announcements about their attempts. Horn has been planning to build a gigantic data center off a remote fjord that will one day be connected to an electricity plant powered by glacial runoff in a climate-changed world. Dans has organised highly publicised trips for the president's inner circle, including his eldest son.
Cox, a member of the Trump administration's Homeland Security Advisory Council, who did not directly talk to the publication, has blasted Denmark for mistreating Greenlanders and was featured last year on “60 Minutes". In one episode, he said he was travelling around Greenland "to try to make some friends".
If the three have been running an influence campaign, it has been conducted in plain sight while pushing their own business interests in the process.
Trump's Greenland Gambit
Trump has made plain his desire to assert US dominance over the Western hemisphere, of which Greenland is an integral part. But in the case of the Danish territory, his fight is against a NATO ally. The Republican leader's reasons for coveting the huge island have swung from military to mineral and back again. He has called the island strategically crucial to the United States, and even though he has backed down from his threats to seize it by force, his interest has remained strong, and so have his allies.
Ronald Lauder, the cosmetics billionaire who is believed to have planted the Greenland bug in Trump's head, has reportedly invested massively in businesses on the island. Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, who used to lead Cantor Fitzgerald, a New York financial firm that took a stake in the island's mining potential, also reportedly has assets on the ground.
But it was the activities of the three lesser-known Trump allies that seemed to have alarmed the Danes the most. Asked about the three men, the White House declined to comment on their activities or the president's relationship with them.
Instead, in a statement to The Time, the White House said that it was working with Greenland and NATO on an agreement that will be “amazing for the USA.”
