Why does Trump want Greenland? The answer is in China.

I'll show you two news items.

China has cut off sales of rare earth elements to Japan. Japan has begun dismantling old air conditioners.

On Friday, Trump said Greenland would come under US control before his term ends.

These two seem separate, but they are the same issue.

First, let's look at what's happening in Japan, because that's where the Greenland issue becomes clear.

China restricted sales of rare earth elements following the Japanese Prime Minister's statements about Taiwan.

The materials cut off are dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, and gallium. These are essential for magnet production, chip manufacturing, and defense systems.

Japan obtains approximately 60% of its rare earth needs from China. For dysprosium and terbium, used in electric vehicle motors, the dependence is almost complete.

The figures are as follows:


A three-month cut costs Japan 660 billion yen. If the outage extends to a year, the loss reaches 2.6 trillion yen.

But the real issue isn't the numbers.

If automotive factories can't find magnets, they're forced to reduce production, or even stop it altogether. This shows that you don't need to send an army to halt a country's industry.

Japan didn't wait.

Many old air conditioners have powerful magnets in their compressors. They contain neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium – metals that China no longer sells.

Old air conditioners across the country are being collected and dismantled, the magnets extracted, and then the metals separated through chemical processes. The company running the program is also one of Japan's largest defense companies, producing missile and radar systems.

A defense company collecting scrap air conditioners seems strange at first glance. It's not strange; it's a necessity.

During the same period, Japan signed mining agreements with India.

And it also decided to send a delegation to Greenland.

And that's where the picture changes.

The US isn't the only country looking at Greenland.

Now, let's look at what's there.

Greenland has the world's eighth largest reserve of rare earth elements, totaling 1.5 million tons. The US has 1.9 million tons of reserves on its own territory, while Canada has 830,000 tons.

So, this place alone holds a resource on the scale of the US.

A distinction needs to be made here.

Rare earth elements are a group of seventeen elements, and within them are two classes.

The lighter ones are found in many parts of the world. The heavier ones are much rarer.

Dysprosium and terbium, mined in Japan, belong to the heavy group. Magnets in electric vehicle motors, missile guidance systems, and radar components require this group, and nothing else can replace it.

Heavy rare earth production is largely in the hands of China.

There's also the processing side of things.

China produces approximately 90% of the world's rare earth refining. It's a world leader in nineteen of the twenty critical minerals.

Now let's go to southern Greenland.

The Kvanefjeld field contains over 11 million tons of rare earth elements. Approximately 370,000 tons of these are heavy rare earth elements.

In other words, the metal that Japan couldn't find, and that the US is dependent on, is right there.

Now comes the crucial part.

The Kvanefjeld field belongs to an Australian company.

The second largest shareholder of that company is the Chinese firm Shenghe Resources.

There's more.

According to an agreement signed in 2018, the buyer of the rare earth elements extracted from the field was also to be the same Chinese company.

China is both a partner and a customer in that mine.

For eight years, China's signature has been on the door that the US wants to enter.

So why is there still no production?

The answer is neither in the US nor in China. It lies in Greenland's own parliament.