Anyone eyeing Greenland as a geopolitical prize might want to look at the balance sheet first. The Wall Street Journal reports that behind President Trump's talk of buying the vast Arctic island sits an economy that leans heavily on Danish cash and shrimp—and isn't growing much. Greenland's government depends on an annual grant from Denmark that accounts for about half its budget and roughly a fifth of GDP. Replace that and other Danish spending with US money, and Greenlanders would instantly become the biggest per-capita recipients of federal funds in America, economists say.
The island's export base is almost comically narrow: seafood makes up about 98% of exports, and shrinking shrimp stocks plus falling prices are already dragging growth toward zero. Mining is touted as the long-term answer, but the terrain, climate, and lack of infrastructure (there's just one active mine) make new projects enormously expensive. The Journal lays out the difficulties: "Building a mine in Greenland often means also building a road and a port, not to mention housing, clinics and amenities for workers, who are scarce and hard to recruit. The freezing weather can make the mine inaccessible for chunks of the year."
The bottom line? "Greenlandic officials quietly concede that, in the short term at least, anyone running this island is more likely to find themselves staring down a money pit rather than a gold mine." Read the full article here.
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