Greenland’s Rare Earths Aren’t All That

To hear some U.S. officials tell it, Greenland is a treasure trove of crucial minerals ripe for the taking. 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, has hailed how “Greenland sits atop vast reserves of rare-earth elements,” while U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has pointed to the territory’s “incredible natural resources.” 

“It’s our national security. It’s critical minerals,” then-incoming U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz declared when discussing President Donald Trump’s designs on the island last year. 

As Greenland has yet again entered the global spotlight amid Trump’s annexation threats, so too has the island’s mining potential for rare earths, the raw materials that have emerged as a major flash point in the U.S.-China trade war. 

While China leverages its rare-earth might in trade talks, Washington has been scrambling to secure new supply chains outside of Beijing’s grip—including by eyeing Greenland. Last year, the Trump administration reportedly mulled taking a stake in a firm that would give the United States a direct interest in a rare-earth project on the island, per Reuters.

But Greenland may not be the rare-earth mother lode that some U.S. officials think.

“It certainly doesn’t make any sense as a rare-earth story,” said Ian Lange, a professor in the mineral economics program at the Colorado School of Mines. 

Rare earths are a set of 17 metallic elements that are crucial to powering advanced weapons systems, green energy technologies, and much more. Despite their name, the resources themselves aren’t actually that hard to find—as Trump himself has acknowledged. 

What’s more challenging is finding the materials in economically viable concentrations and then mining and processing them. That all requires immense capital and expertise and has environmental costs. 

This is where Greenland, which has never seen any rare-earth mining, raises doubts. “There’s an economic question that is hanging over access to the assets in Greenland and exploiting them,” said Chris Berry, the president of House Mountain Partners, an independent metals analysis consultancy based in Washington.

Greenland does appear to have about 1.5 million tons worth of reserves of rare earths. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the island claims the world’s eighth-biggest rare-earth reserves, but that puts it behind even the United States. Attention on the island’s rare earths has mostly centered on two deposits, Kvanefjeld and Tanbreez. 

But that’s just one part of the picture. While Greenland has “high potential for rare earths,” said Gracelin Baskaran, a critical minerals security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), “just because you have minerals does not necessarily make you a competitive mining jurisdiction.” 

That’s because it’s not so easy to mine or even access desired mineral deposits in a place where an estimated 80 percent of the land is covered in ice. Beyond that obstacle, the island lacks much of the mining and processing infrastructure that would be necessary to get an industry off the ground. 

“The infrastructure that you’re going to need to put in place, I would argue, is going to be very, very cost-prohibitive,” Berry said. 

With limited roads connecting the territory’s major hubs, it would be even more challenging to launch construction efforts. Local opposition and environmental concerns, too, would likely prove to be a major roadblock to any mining efforts. 

With all of these conditions, Greenland is far from an ideal mining environment, experts said. 

“There’s so many rare-earth projects that if you were to rank them in terms of doable down to not doable, Greenland’s project would be in the bottom quartile,” said Christopher Ecclestone, a mining strategist at the financial advisory firm Hallgarten & Co.

Baskaran, the CSIS expert, said Washington’s “best bet” at making mining work in Greenland would be working with the European Union to invest in the island. 

But that, too, could prove tricky at a time when the White House’s relationship with many European leaders has rapidly devolved in recent days over Trump’s annexation threats and Greenlandic leaders have vigorously insisted that the island, which is semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, is not for sale. 

In the critical minerals race, Washington might be better off if it focuses its attention elsewhere. 

“These resources aren’t rare—it’s an economic question,” Berry said. “I just think you could probably develop a rare-earth or a copper or a lithium supply chain much more cost effectively and much more quickly without Greenland.”