President Donald Trump has long wanted Greenland, the large North Atlantic island controlled by Denmark. He has repeatedly threatened to seize the territory and, at a July NATO summit in Ankara, said he would take Greenland for the United States. Trump has also posted a meme showing his face looming over a Greenlandic village with the slogan “Hello Greenland!” The idea is not entirely without precedent: in 1946, the Truman administration offered Denmark $100 million for Greenland, recognizing its strategic value in the North Atlantic.

Now Greenland Energy, a company created last year by Texas Trump supporter Larry Swets amid Trump’s rhetoric about the island, has begun moving drilling equipment to East Greenland’s Arctic basin. The company says it will extract $1 trillion in crude oil beneath the Jameson Land region. Both Denmark and Greenland are protesting. As one prominent television anchor noted, the United States may have effectively begun an invasion of Greenland. The push comes despite Greenland’s own government having banned new oil and gas exploration licenses in 2021, citing climate and economic concerns.

MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow described the response from Greenland’s government, quoting the minister responsible for mineral resources. In a local interview, the minister said he was certain the American oil company would not break the law and try to begin drilling without permission. If that happened, he said Greenland had the means to stop it.

Maddow said the minister explained, “This is a society governed by the rule of law, so I have some broad-shouldered men in black uniforms in the first instance who can help me deal with some illegal activities if I ask for them” — meaning, she said, the Greenlandic police. She added that he also said, “Ultimately, I'm sure that the Arctic Command will also contribute” — which Maddow interpreted as meaning the Danish military would intervene if necessary to stop drilling without authorization. Under Greenland’s 2009 self-rule agreement, Denmark retains authority over defense and foreign policy, while Greenland controls its own mineral resources.

Maddow then summarized the situation this way: a Trump-aligned Texas oil company says it will drill in Greenland, Greenland says it will not permit it, the company nonetheless drops off drilling equipment, local residents say they will fight “tooth and nail,” and the government says it will use police and, if needed, the Danish military. “You put it all together,” she said, “and it kind of seems like we're invading Greenland.”

She also said the company has partnered with Dr. Phil to make what appears to be promotional television content about the project, which Greenland’s government says is illegal and unauthorized. “Honestly — is this how we invade Greenland?” Maddow asked. “With Dr. Phil doing a ride-along, like he did with ICE [which Greenland Energy says they are going to do]? All because a Trump donor billionaire says he needs to drill this oil, and who cares what this little country says?”

If the United States were to invade Greenland, the European Union could trigger its Anti-Coercion Instrument, a set of boycotts and trade restrictions that would be aimed at punishing violations of European sovereignty. In February, the German Marshall Fund’s Antonia Wunnerlich and Georgina Wright wrote that “The EU’s single market counts roughly 450 million consumers,” and said these tools could have significant extraterritorial effects, including on foreign businesses without European subsidiaries. They added that U.S. and Chinese services firms are especially exposed because their home countries run large services surpluses with the EU.

The article also notes that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting because of human-caused climate change, a process that is destabilizing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. If the situation worsens, the result could include rising sea levels, widespread flooding, severe storms and other extreme weather.

In 2020, Michael Mann, then a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, told Salon that Greenland’s rate of melt was approaching or exceeding natural warming-period melt rates seen over the past 12,000 years. He said that was what he would expect based on the available evidence. Mann also said one of his studies found “evidence of the freshening of the sub-polar North Atlantic” that would be expected as Greenland continues to melt, and that this freshening is reducing ocean stratification and likely slowing the ocean “conveyor belt” circulation, the real-world equivalent of the scenario depicted in “The Day After Tomorrow.”

Mann added, “As I am fond of saying, uncertainty is not our friend. It’s cutting against us, not in our favor, as we see and learn more.”