Welcome to Greenland, an economy reliant on subsidies and shrimp

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NUUK, Greenland—If President Trump acquired Greenland, he would find himself in charge of a slow-growing economy heavily reliant on more than $1 billion of annual government subsidies and powered largely by sales of shrimp. The world’s largest island is prized by the U.S.

president as the real-estate purchase of a lifetime. It boasts a strategic location and untapped mineral reserves buried deep beneath the ice. Right now, however, the economy is reliant on something more prosaic: fishing and a recent surge in investment to build new airports.

And revenue from both of these is trending down, causing the economy to flatline in 2025. Opinion polls over recent years consistently show that Greenlanders are more concerned about the state of their economy than a foreign takeover by America, or anyone else. Greenlandic officials quietly concede that, in the short term at least, anyone running this island is more likely to find themselves staring down a money pit rather than a gold mine.

The island is one of one of the world’s biggest welfare states, a vast expanse of ice-clad villages whose residents—reachable only by helicopter and propjet—are nonetheless accustomed to the perks of Denmark’s social democracy, from free healthcare to robust schools. It could also take years and billions of dollars to transform an economy where 98% of the exports are seafood into a mining behemoth. “It is not a diversified economy and it is going to take a while for it to become self-sufficient," said Otto Svendsen, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.