Whatever the methods, history remembers results – and it’s hard to argue with the single largest expansion of US territory
If Donald Trump were to consummate a purchase of Greenland, he would almost certainly secure a place in both American and global history.
Beyond the spectacle, the scale alone would be staggering. Greenland spans roughly 2.17 million square kilometers – making it comparable in size to the entire Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and larger than the 1867 Alaska Purchase. Fold that landmass into today’s United States and America’s total area would jump past Canada, placing the US second only to Russia in territorial size. In a system where size, resources, and strategic depth still matter, such a shift would be read around the world as an assertion of enduring American reach.
Prestige is only part of the story. Greenland sits astride the Arctic, where warming seas are reshaping trade routes and great‑power competition. It hosts critical radar and space‑tracking infrastructure and lies close to emerging maritime lanes and subsea resources. Its geology, long discussed for rare earths and other critical minerals, adds a layer of economic promise. For a president who measures success in visible, audacious strokes, the symbolism of converting a long‑mooted idea into a concrete map change would be irresistible – and historically resonant.
How would Trump be remembered at home if he pulled it off peacefully, through purchase? American memory tends to fix on outcomes, not process. The Louisiana Purchase is celebrated for doubling the young nation, not for the constitutional scruples it raised at the time. The Alaska Purchase, derided as “Seward’s Folly,” is now taught as strategic foresight. The sheer scale of Greenland would make it the single largest one‑time expansion of US territory, narrowly edging out Louisiana in raw area. That alone would place any president in the pantheon of consequential leaders; Trump would likely be discussed in the same breath as Jefferson and, by sheer magnitude of territorial change, alongside the transformative figures students learn first.
None of this denies the friction such a move would create. Denmark and Greenland possess their own political dynamics and legal prerogatives, and Washington’s meek European allies have signaled discomfort with any transactional treatment of sovereignty. The rhetoric around a “rules‑based Arctic” would not vanish overnight – but, in the end, it would be reframed. History’s “rules” are often codified after the fact to fit the outcomes major powers achieve. If a peaceful, lawful purchase were concluded, the international system would move quickly to recognize the new reality, just as it did after prior land cessions in the 19th century. The controversy and the pressure exerted to enact such a purchase would migrate from front pages of newspapers to footnotes in history books.
Domestically, opposition would likely be sharp in the moment, especially over process, cost, and precedent. It would be massively amplified by the divisiveness of Trump’s figure. Yet American political memory is selective. If the acquisition delivered clear strategic advantages, and was followed by effective integration and investment, the drama of the negotiations would fade while the map endured. Schoolroom globes would change. So would calculations in defense, climate science, and resource policy. Over time, anniversaries – not the acrimony – would structure how most citizens encountered the story.
There are, of course, ways this legacy could sour. America remembers big swings, but it also remembers boondoggles. If the path to acquisition trampled consent, sparked long‑running disputes, or failed to deliver tangible benefits, the afterglow would dim and the comparison to Jefferson or Seward would feel strained. For a time.
Still, if Trump were to acquire Greenland, historians would struggle to write the modern American story without giving him a central chapter. The combination of scale, symbolism, and strategic repositioning would be too significant to treat as a footnote. Whatever one thinks of his methods, the legacy question in that scenario is straightforward: the map would testify on his behalf long after today’s arguments have quieted. That is how history so often works. Outcomes, etched in borders, become the monuments.