Since his election, Donald Trump has floated a wide variety of foreign policy ideas, many of which are fairly absurd – especially the trollish suggestion that Canada should become America’s 51^st state. But others are far more reasonable, like the potential purchase and annexation of Greenland. Critics have labeled this as an unnecessary distraction and a waste of taxpayer dollars, but they are dead wrong. Annexing Greenland an excellent idea, crucial for bolstering our economy and national security against our adversaries, with long-standing precedent in American history.

American leaders have proposed a purchase of Greenland several times in the past, starting in 1867 and recurring at least thrice in the 20^th century before it was re-floated during the first Trump administration. It was most seriously contemplated by Harry Truman in 1946, who offered to buy the territory from the Danes for $100 million in gold and oil rights in Alaska. Had the purchase gone through then – or if it does now – it will not have been the first such negotiated transfer of territory from Denmark to the United States: Washington purchased the Danish West Indies (today’s US Virgin Islands) from Copenhagen in 1917 for $25 million.

That we have not added any permanent new territory since the Second World War does not mean that we cannot or should not now. Peaceful expansion is not antithetical to the American ethos. And although we have not needed such direct aggrandizement in the recent past, that does not mean that we may not need it now. The example of Britain, a supposedly dependable ally, surrendering its sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, home of the American air base on Diego Garcia, to Mauritius and thus exposing a crucial military installation to Chinese influence is instructive. Unless a territory is American in fact and law, its future will remain uncertain. Some critics of the Greenland gambit, usually progressives, lambast it as a relic of the imperial age, but purchasing new territory in a diplomatic negotiation for the purpose of positively integrating it into the nation is not reminiscent of 19th-century imperialism.

Greenland, the world’s largest island, sits along the Arctic Sea, which is rapidly becoming a highly relevant shipping route as the polar ice caps recede, particularly for Russia. The Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Routes could cut costs significantly, a novel reality the shipping industry is already embracing. Furthermore, Greenland has one of the world’s largest known reserves of rare earth minerals, necessary for technology applications from military hardware to clean energy. The island and its surrounding waters also hold large untapped fossil fuel deposits, particularly of natural gas. Much of this natural wealth is trapped beneath the ice or otherwise difficult to access, a problem that is far likelier to be solved by American ingenuity than Danish complacency.