No, I’m not a CIA spy in Greenland
The Danish media has accused me of being a US spy. They say I’m concerned in a covert affect operation in Greenland to push the territory in direction of turning into a part of the US. I wish to be clear that I’ve by no means labored as a covert operative. Instead, my work entails getting funding for sectors like mining and infrastructure.
I’m very public about my travels in Greenland and enterprise there. I routinely seem on daytime tv and convey my household on these journeys. That can be a unusual factor for Jason Bourne or James Bond to do. I typically go for dinner with Greenlandic officers at very public eating places, with their respective wives and youngsters too. Despite this, I’ve been advised by quite a few insiders that I’m being monitored. To their credit score, the Danish and Greenlandic governments have all the time been well mannered and non-invasive. I’ve by no means been introduced in for official questioning.
I first discovered about these allegations via media experiences, not via any official channel. In a sense, I perceive why they’re being made. An American with a authorities background – a former Green Beret and Trump administration official, now engaged on useful resource tasks in Greenland – matches neatly into a sure narrative. But my work has all the time been industrial and clear.
My involvement in Greenland started as a skilled task throughout the first Trump administration. I used to be tasked with understanding Greenland’s sources and strategic potential. What I discovered was a society with a sturdy id, succesful management and a clear willpower to form its personal financial path. That stayed with me, and I stored coming again. I’ve a actual respect for a way severely Greenlanders take into consideration their future and the trade-offs concerned.
When I left authorities, I continued this work in the personal sector, specializing in essential minerals and useful resource growth. Through GreenMet, the advisory agency I based in 2021, I work on advancing essential supplies tasks in the United States and allied international locations, together with Greenland. We do not act on behalf of any authorities. Our function is to assist deliver collectively technical experience, capital and credible working companions the place tasks stand on their very own deserves.
I do not assist any effort to advertise Greenlandic secession. Greenland’s political future is for Greenlanders to find out throughout the framework of the Kingdom of Denmark.
The accusation that I’m a US agent says extra in regards to the present second than it does about me. As Greenland attracts extra consideration, persons are fast to border every little thing in geopolitical phrases. That’s not the way it appears to be like domestically. The focus is on sensible questions, jobs, coaching, infrastructure, and whether or not something being proposed is actual or simply discuss. What has modified is that Greenland is now not being ignored. It sits on supplies the West now worries about, in provide chains nonetheless closely uncovered to China. Washington has taken an curiosity, and so have American traders. That alone is sufficient to elevate eyebrows in Copenhagen.
In that ambiance, it does not take a lot to be labeled. An American engaged on useful resource tasks, with a authorities background, is simple to forged in a sure mild. It is a neater story to say “spy” than to simply accept that industrial actors have proven up as a result of the economies have shifted. There are additionally inside tensions about how Greenland ought to develop and who needs to be concerned. When these arguments sharpen, outdoors figures get pulled in whether or not they belong there or not.
The mineral endowment is actual, and so is the demand. Southern Greenland sits on one of many largest identified uncommon earth provinces outdoors China, with deposits that run into the billions of tons of mineral-bearing rock and vital concentrations of the weather used in electrical autos, magnets and protection programs.
I routinely seem on daytime tv and convey my household on these journeys. That can be a unusual factor for Jason Bourne or James Bond to do.
Today, processing of those supplies is closely concentrated in China, which accounts for roughly 80 to 90 % of worldwide capability. That degree of focus can be uncommon in nearly any strategic business. Even partial growth of Greenland’s identified sources would not exchange China, however it could start to shift the steadiness in a market that’s presently closely skewed.
Greenland is usually handled as a strategic prize in a contest between nice powers, however that is not about selecting between the United States and Denmark. As an American, I can make investments and work with companions there, however choices about Greenland’s future are not mine to make.
What I like most about Greenland is how shortly it stops feeling distant and begins feeling acquainted. I all the time deliver colleagues and household together with me once I go to. Some of the most effective moments are in small, native locations, like Restaurant Charoen Porn, the place they serve whale sushi. It comes as a part of a blended platter, however I normally ask them to swap out the opposite fish for extra whale. Or a evening at Daddy’s, the place by the weekend it seems like the entire city has proven up and also you’re simply a part of it. It’s unpolished, direct, and genuinely welcoming, and that is what retains me coming again.
To return to the place this started, the concept that is some form of covert affect operation simply does not maintain up. There’s nothing hidden about it. It’s extraordinary industrial work in a place that has all of a sudden grow to be politically delicate. If Greenland’s sources have been ever developed at scale, they would not shift the worldwide steadiness in a single day, however they might imply fewer chokepoints in a system that’s presently closely depending on China. That’s the true concern beneath all of this, not espionage.