The intelligentsia are laughing at Donald Trump’s idea of acquiring Greenland from Denmark.

Trump’s argument is that Greenland is of strategic national security value to the U.S. He’s also betting this giant island has other rare and undiscovered assets.

Does anyone remember Seward’s Folly? This was the American acquisition of Alaska in 1867 by then-Secretary of State William Seward. The price tag was $7 million. That would be the equivalent of less than $1 billion today – or less than what Washington spends every day. Alaska is twice the size of Texas, so Russia practically gave it away to us.

Alaska was soon discovered to have vast quantities of gold in the Yukon and played a strategic role during World War II. Then the north slope of Alaska was discovered to have massive deposits of oil and gas worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Seward also commissioned an 1868 report that concluded we should acquire Greenland.

For the first hundred years of our country all we did was acquire land to expand America’s reach and achieve our manifest destiny.  Most famous was Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. Then we got Florida from Spain, added Texas as a free agent, then Oregon, and finally Hawaii. We bought most of this land for a tiny fraction of what it is worth today.

None of this was folly.

The residents of Greenland would be able to bequeath to their children one of the greatest assets on the planet – U.S. passports.

Could be a win-win.

America – My How You’ve Grown
(The dark brown area is the original area of the nation)