What's New Podcast - Trump, Greenland, and the Changing Arctic Order
In this What’s New Episode, Serafima Andreeva, Erdem Lamazhapov and Andreas Østhagen discuss Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland and the impact on the current and future Arctic order. Photo: Photo: Serafima Andreeva
What’s New? is a podcast on Arctic geopolitics, governance, and security. Created and hosted by Serafima Andreeva, and supported by The Arctic Institute and the Fridtjof Nansen Institute. The podcast brings together leading experts from various fields of Arctic geopolitics and many Arctic and non-Arctic states to unpack key developments, challenge common misconceptions, and discuss the current dynamics of todays changing Arctic.
Trump, Greenland, and the Changing Arctic Order
Greenland has once again become a headline in U.S. politics — and Donald Trump’s language has pushed the question from diplomacy into something more unsettling: what happens when an ally is treated as an object of acquisition?
In this episode of What’s New?, host Serafima Andreeva is joined by Andreas Østhagen (Fridtjof Nansen Institute and The Arctic Institute) and Erdem Lamazhapov (Fridtjof Nansen Institute) to examine what the U.S. push around Greenland tells us about the Arctic — and about the state of the international order. Their argument is straightforward: this story is not primarily about minerals or the claim that “Chinese and Russian ships” are circling Greenland. It is about power, spheres of influence, and how easily the language of security can be used to justify pressure on smaller societies.
The conversation situates Greenland’s position between its own long-term aspiration for independence and its complex relationship with Denmark — shaped by historical injustices, but also by decades of expanding self-government. Andreas explains why narratives about a deep Denmark–Greenland rupture are often overstated, and how they can be used to create political wedges. Erdem grounds the minerals debate in reality: what projects exist, where rare earths are located, why uranium politics became central in Greenlandic elections, and why Chinese involvement has been far more limited than public rhetoric suggests.
From there, the episode cuts through common misconceptions about Arctic security. The guests explain what Greenland is actually relevant for (surveillance and airborne threats), what it is not (a theatre of constant naval competition), and why the Arctic’s size and geography matter for any serious strategic assessment.
Finally, the episode explores consequences. Even without military force, coercive diplomacy can erode trust — within NATO, between allies, and in the wider norms that protect sovereignty and self-determination. The key question becomes less “can the U.S. get Greenland?” than “what precedents are set when great powers behave as if they can?” The episode closes with policy recommendations and a hard reality: in an era of transactional politics, allies may be pressured to manufacture symbolic victories — but the costs of doing so can travel far beyond the Arctic.