The Trump administration's flirtation with acquiring Greenland, now paired with Silicon Valley's proposal to transform it into a libertarian "freedom city," reads less like policy than speculative fiction—equal parts imperial fantasy and venture-capitalist fever dream. According to recent reporting, a cluster of influential tech investors, with ties to Trump's inner circle, envision the icy island as a utopian zone for artificial intelligence labs, autonomous vehicles, micro nuclear reactors, and spaceports—all under a regime of near-total regulatory exemption. But the problems with this vision aren't just logistical or political. They're civilisational.
At its core, the entire proposal reeks of neocolonialism—only this time, the missionaries are billionaires and their gospel is innovation. Greenland is not empty. It is home to an Indigenous Inuit population governed semi-autonomously under the Kingdom of Denmark. Treating it as real estate to be purchased—or worse, taken by military force, as Trump has openly mused—is not only a violation of international norms but an erasure of Greenlandic agency. The "freedom city" idea is merely the latest disguise for an old imperial instinct: extract, displace, and reframe the theft as progress.
Even on its own terms, the proposal collapses under scrutiny. These so-called "freedom cities" have been tried before, often in Latin America, Southeast Asia, or proposed on floating islands in international waters. They usually end up as elite technocratic enclaves—laboratories for deregulated capitalism where wealthy founders make the rules and workers have few protections. The outcome is predictable: a glossy, surveillance-heavy metropolis for the global one percent, built on the backs of imported labour and sold as utopia. Greenland, in this light, becomes just another staging ground for a gated future: sterile, unequal, and dystopian.
Then there's the geography. Greenland is not a sandbox. It is a vast, icy, environmentally fragile territory with harsh winters, minimal infrastructure, and no viable path to rapid industrial transformation without immense ecological cost. High-speed rail, AI campuses, and spaceports are not plug-and-play ideas in a landmass dominated by glaciers.
What's more alarming is the political logic underpinning it all. Trump's rhetoric about annexing Greenland, "taking back" the Panama Canal, or rebuilding Gaza as beachfront real estate isn't policy—it's empire cosplay. That such notions are even entertained as serious foreign policy represents a terrifying drift toward normalised expansionism. It reframes diplomacy as acquisition, and militarised power as problem-solving. The "freedom city" becomes a perfect symbol of this: a new frontier for those who see the world not as a collection of peoples and histories, but as a canvas for wealth, control, and personal ambition.
This is not about freedom. It's not about opportunity or innovation or global leadership. It's about ideology. The freedom city model—whether in Greenland, Honduras, or a Mars colony—serves one purpose: to create deregulated playgrounds where the rules that bind ordinary people do not apply to the powerful. It is libertarianism with a colonial chassis, disguised as progress. It offers sleek renderings and buzzwords to distract from its core premise: that the best world is one ruled by capital, designed for efficiency, and liberated from the constraints of democracy.
And so, asglobalism causes inequality to deepen, the architects of this future city imagine they can start over—on someone else's land, under their own rules, in a fortress insulated from the collapse they helped accelerate. In that sense, Greenland isn't just a location; it's a metaphor. It stands for the final outpost, the ultimate blank slate, where techno-optimism and imperial nostalgia converge in one last attempt to outrun the consequences of our age.
But the world isn't blank. It never was. And the future isn't built in bunkers or startup cities—it's decided by whether we can abandon the fantasy that power and wealth entitle us to remake the Earth in our image.
"As the Trump administration intensifies efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark — or take it by force — some Silicon Valley tech investors are promoting the frozen island as a site for a so-called freedom city, a libertarian utopia with minimal corporate regulation, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The discussions are in early stages, but the idea has been taken seriously by Trump's pick for Denmark ambassador, Ken Howery, who is expected to be confirmed by Congress in the coming months and lead Greenland-acquisition negotiations, the people said. Howery, whose involvement with the idea hasn't been previously reported, once co-founded a venture-capital firm with tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a leading advocate for such low-regulation cities. Howery is also a longtime friend of Elon Musk, a top Trump advisor.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Sources who spoke to Reuters requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The vision for Greenland, one of the people said, could include a hub for artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, space launches, micro nuclear reactors and high-speed rail.
The discussions reflect a longstanding Silicon Valley movement to establish low-regulation cities globally, including in the United States, which Trump himself promised to do in a 2023 campaign video. Proponents use different names for variations on the idea, including startup cities or charter cities, with the common goal of spurring innovation through sweeping regulatory exemptions.
The administration's consideration of such a quixotic quest underscores the growing clout of tech magnates and Trump's increasingly expansionist foreign policy. After campaigning on a largely isolationist platform, Trump has since his November election suggested taking back the Panama Canal, annexing Canada and redeveloping the war-torn Gaza Strip after seizing the beachfront land from displaced Palestinians.
Greenland is about three times the size of Texas with a population of only 57,000. But the island is strategically important to the U.S. military, which has a base there, and contains substantial deposits of minerals, including rare-earths.
Trump has refused to rule out taking Greenland by military force if Denmark won't sell it.
"We have to have Greenland," Trump said late last month as his Vice President, J.D. Vance, visited a U.S. military base on the island."