One of the buzzing statements that the world is facing now is the issue of Greenland, which is the biggest ice-covered island in the world. When I saw the world map, I was thinking how an Island can be so large? Then I found that the areas near the polar point in the flat map become larger when the rounded world is put off the plain surface, and I saw the lifestyle there in some documentaries and their fishing cultures, which is really so fascinating, but the extreme cold of the region is a fearful thing to visit for a tropical netizen.
Though very few people live here, this island has a bright future, and with its small population, it can be the richest nation by selling their abundant rare earth materials in the coming future. But the fate of the island is now in uncertainty as a superpower like the USA can do anything there, at least the current president can do whatever he likes!
- Greenland holds an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of rare earth reserves despite having no commercial production.
- China dominates global rare earth mining, but undeveloped reserves elsewhere could reshape future supply chains.
- Visualcapitalist
I have never thought that the close ally of the European Union, the U.S. President Donald Trump, would once again put Greenland at the center of global attention. And now he is wishing for it to have like Canada as its own territory as a 51st state, or maybe 52nd after the acquisition of Canada! His renewing the threat to establish the U.S. control over this Arctic territory is really an unexpected situation for the European leaders, especially for Denmark it is a tough situation as Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark from the early history.
One of the main reason behind the tension is that China remains the largest supplier of the global rare earth market with the highest reserve which is almost half of the world's total reserve. In 2024, China has produced around 270k metric tons which is a huge amount that maintain the market supply chain. And USA is facing trouble for its semiconductor industry and so the taxation against China didn't work for USA. Furthermore, China also controls the largest reserves of the rare earth materials with an estimated amount of 44 million metric tons.
Greenland matters because the reserve of this arctic island is quite high among the top ten region of the world with an estimated amount of 1.5 million metric tons of rare earth that is more than many countries like Canada and South Africa. And the good thing is that the island has never had any kind of commercial production of these valuable rare earth materials. And that is the reason Donald Trump wants this island to be a production hub of the useful rare earth materials to lessen its dependency on the Chinese supply chains.
I hope you get some insights about the real scenario of the politics with the rare earth materials of Greenland. If you have any queries, let me know in the comments, and I will try my best to answer them as much as I can.
Thanks a lot for your time and attention. I will catch up with you at the next one.
Wishing you a good day!
The cover photo is taken from the Visualcapitalist