Sorry Trump, you can't afford to buy Greenland
Trump, you can't afford it.
Andreas Cervenka
Reporter and economic commentator
This is a commemtary text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.
Uppdaterad 15.59 | Publicerad 15.38
Updated 15.59 | Published 15.38
Donald Trump is determined to "buy" Greenland.
Excuse a stupid question: for what money?
The American state is losing 45 billion kronor. Every day.
Why is Donald Trump so obsessed with taking over Grönland?
Thousands of experts and politicians around the world are trying almost desperately to find traces of logic in the president's actions.
It's like trying to extract gold from food waste.
The question is whether it’s worth the time and energy.
Only Donald Trump knows what’s going on in his head, if at all.
But here’s what Donald Trump himself said when he spoke to journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker about Greenland 2021 when they interviewed him for the book “The Divider.”
“So I work in real estate. I look at a street corner and I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store to the building that I’m building.’ It’s not really that different. I love maps. And I’ve always said, ‘Look at how big this is, it’s huge, and it should be part of the United States.’ It’s no different than a real estate deal. It’s just a little bigger—to put it mildly.”
No one has apparently told Donald Trump that Greenland looks significantly bigger on a regular map than it actually is, but who cares about the details?
The plans to take over Greenland have been compared by various court jesters to a real estate transaction. Bill Ackman, a well-known Wall Street profile, wrote on X that “the United States is about to grow by 22 percent. The biggest real estate deal ever”.
That is a pretty gross insult to the world’s real estate companies.
In that industry, it is not customary to force transactions through financial blackmail and threats of violence.
But if we still pretend that it is a reasonable analogy. Would buying Greenland even be a good deal?
One thing is clear: the price will be high. Of course, it will be a math game, but the White House is reportedly counting on a price tag of at 700 billion dollars.
This is based, among other things, on the mineral and oil deposits found on the island.
To make a deal in the real estate industry work, the most important thing is that the object you buy gives a good return, i.e. ongoing income.
Greenland does not. Instead, the deal will initially only cost money.
Greenland receives around 8 billion kronor a year in grants from the Danish state, payments that the US would have to take over.
And extracting the deposits that are hidden far beneath the ice will cost an additional enormous amount and take many years. In total, a Greenland purchase could involve an investment of up to a thousand billion dollars, according to experts. And no income for a long time.
What makes the calculation even worse is that the deal must be financed with one hundred percent loans.
The finances of Fastighets AB USA look quite shaky.
A minimum requirement in a real estate company is that the income must cover the cost of operations. The US is grossly violating that bar.
During the most recent fiscal year, which ended September 30, 2025, the government took in a total of $5.235 billion but spent $7.010 billion, according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office.
The budget deficit totaled $1.775 billion, equivalent to 16.330 billion kronor or around 45 billion a day.
It was admittedly a small decrease compared to the previous year, thanks to revenue from Trump's tariffs.
This is money that comes from American citizens, according to a recent study, and not other countries, as the president seems to believe.
Of the spending, $1.028 billion consisted of interest on the national debt, the second largest expense item after Social Security.
The US is showing red numbers. even before the interest is paid. That would be a red flag for a real estate company and make it impossible to borrow money.
It is also ominous because interest rates only look set to rise in the future.
During the years 2020 and 2025, the United States has run a deficit of a staggering $12.6 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the deficit during the years 2025 to 2034 will total more than $21 trillion.
In just ten years, the debt has more than doubled. in addition to today's debt of $38.6 trillion,
So far, there has been no problem with borrowing, as the US and the US dollar have been seen as the safest investment on earth.
Since Trump now seems focused on tearing apart all old alliances, it is not at all certain that it will be as easy in the future. With his actions, Trump is on the verge of eliminating the US's most important advantage. In recent days, the dollar has fallen and the interest rate on US government bonds has risen.
But judging by his career as a real estate magnate, Trump probably doesn't think the US is that careful about paying off its loans. His companies are notorious for trying to evade their debts.
That the outside world has some doubts about the US's future willingness to pay can be read in the price of gold, a more tangible form of money.
Since Donald Trump was sworn in as president a year ago, the metal has become 75 percent more expensive.
And there is actually a theoretical possibility that Trump could scrape together the money for a cash bid for Greenland. If in exchange he hands over the entire US gold reserve, the world's largest. That would turn the dollar into confetti.
Are Americans in on it?
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