Trump, don’t stop with Greenland. Take Hans Island, too

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had barely reached the European Parliament podium in Strasbourg on Sept. 17, 2026, when German lawmaker Siegbert Droese shouted, “USA! USA!” Carney laughed. European lawmakers groaned and booed as if those three letters were an outright stain. Tehran stages that identical reflex before the crowd finds its traditional “Death to America” rhythmic chant. Against this background, Washington must look past the immediate theater and read that hostile room as calculated strategy, not mere manners.Just one day prior, European Commission Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become the European Union’s first “associate member,” an unprecedented status completely undefined by European treaties.During her “offer speech,” von der Leyen also explicitly branded the Arctic as a “flagship joint project,” demanding integrated defense bases alongside a shared space covering critical minerals, batteries, energy, and artificial intelligence. As expected, Carney warmly welcomed the ambition. Because Ottawa and Brussels already march in lockstep on climate diktat, speech codes, and net-zero planning, this associate membership effectively hardens the expanding European bloc directly on North American soil. Hans Island serves as the definitive geopolitical pretext for this creeping European encroachment. On June 14, 2022, Canada and Denmark split the 0.5-square-mile rock, partitioning 60% to Denmark through Greenland and 40% to Canada through Nunavut. That line created Canada’s solitary land border with “European territory,” sealing a nearly 2,500-mile maritime boundary from the Labrador Sea to the Lincoln Sea. Indeed, combining associate membership with this Greenland border allows Ottawa to argue that Canada already “reaches” the EU. Geography bars full membership on paper, but this rock erases that barrier in politics.American history exposes the sheer absurdity of Washington’s passive regional retreat. Elisha Kent Kane and Charles Francis Hall first mapped Kennedy Channel during an American expedition and named the island after their Inuit guide, Hans Hendrik. Treasury officials subsequently handed Denmark a $25 million gold warrant — 48 tons of bullion — on March 31, 1917, to secure the Danish West Indies. Seeking to seal that transaction, Secretary of State Robert Lansing recognized Danish sovereignty over all of Greenland, effectively abandoning the vital Arctic claims those expeditions pioneered. Later, President Harry Truman offered $100 million in gold for Greenland in December 1946, but was left empty-handed. While it might sound far-fetched, two gold offers bought Caribbean harbors, while delivering absolutely nothing at the strategic Nares Strait.With this in mind, strategic reality demands that Washington correct these historic errors immediately. Hans Island sits inside Kennedy Channel within the aforementioned Nares Strait, the narrow gate between Ellesmere Island and Greenland feeding the Lincoln Sea. Securing control of that passage protects the northern approach to the critical Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap, a choke point Russia’s Northern Fleet now quietly controls in the North Atlantic. Conversely, allowing an EU legal system on this rock, or inside Greenland under a joint Arctic flagship, punches a third sovereign directly into NORAD’s northern defensive wall.TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT GREENLAND. HE’S DEAD WRONG ABOUT HOW TO GET ITThe reality is that Washington must immediately secure Greenland and Hans Island across three distinct theaters. First, Congress must authorize an instrument reopening the 1916 Lansing Declaration as incomplete consideration, purchasing Denmark’s 60% share of Hans Island to complete the Greenland acquisition Truman priced in gold. Second, President Donald Trump should declare the Hans Island rift line a NORAD forward site and the northern terminus of the Monroe Doctrine, deploy acoustic arrays, and treat any EU inspector as an extra-hemispheric presence. Third, the Treasury should issue an Arctic Gate Bond funding this node, routing mineral offtake through U.S. shipping. Ottawa and Nuuk may subscribe, but Brussels gets no seat on the indenture. Carney’s laugh exposed who he considered the hemisphere’s “awkward guest.” Washington must answer by taking the rock that lets Europe claim a border in North America.Jose Lev Alvarez is an American-Israeli scholar specializing in international security policy. A multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees and is completing a Ph.D. in intelligence and global security in the Washington, D.C., area.