1965 Wharton graduate Ronald Lauder supports President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump's decision to purchase Greenland.
Credit: Emily Xu1965 Wharton graduate and former Penn donor Ronald Lauder planted the seed of 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump’s push to purchase Greenland.
Trump suggested purchasing the Danish territory during his first term in office, but touted his plans to buy the island as recently as this month. In a January press conference, Trump proposed a territory annexation blitz — which would include Greenland — and suggested he would consider using American military force to gain control of them.
The idea wasn’t a mere fancy, according to “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021” authored by journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Trump dedicated research to the potential annexation of Greenland after Lauder pitched the idea during the president’s first term. Lauder — heir of $29 billion cosmetics company Estée Lauder and former ambassador to Austria — even volunteered as a “back channel” for negotiations with Denmark about the sale.
Trump, who graduated from Wharton three years after Lauder, told his then-national security advisor John Bolton that “a friend of mine, a really, really experienced businessman, thinks we can get Greenland.”
Although Lauder’s exact motivation is unclear, Greenland has repeatedly captured international attention as a key asset in the Arctic. During the Cold War, the United States stored nuclear weapons on the island, which is also home to mineral, oil, and gas reserves.
Trump later claimed that he arrived at the idea on his own, citing his perspective as a real estate developer.
“I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’” Trump said in an interview with Baker and Glasser. “And I always said: ‘Look at the size of [Greenland]. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’”
A special team within the National Security Council was assigned to evaluate the situation, and their investigation led to a memo that laid out several ways the United States could acquire Greenland. Trump suggested funneling federal funds from Puerto Rico into the annexation. He separately proposed trading Puerto Rico for Greenland.
Several of Trump’s advisors and cabinet members — including Bolton — were reportedly skeptical of the idea, and some even feared a diplomatic confrontation if the President’s desires were made public.
Bolton agreed that increasing America’s influence in Greenland could thwart the growing presence of China and Russia in the Arctic, but he advised against the president’s public approach. In an interview with The Free Press, Bolton recommended that Trump “close his mouth” when attempting to negotiate with Denmark. He also confirmed that the push for Greenland “came from Ronald Lauder.”
Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has renewed his interest in purchasing Greenland. “I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,” Trump said in a recent Truth Social post. “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation.”
The president expressed his interest in buying the territory during a phone call with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen earlier this month.
“He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous,” one European official who was briefed on the call said. “The Danes are utterly freaked out by this,” said another.
Greenland’s prime minister seemed similarly disinterested in the president’s offer. “Greenland is for the Greenlandic people. We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American. We want to be Greenlandic,” he said in a recent press conference.
On Jan. 27, Denmark announced a plan to spend 14.6 billion Danish kroner, around $2 billion, on increased Arctic military defense in an effort to "improve capabilities for surveillance and [maintain] sovereignty in the region."
Trump and Lauder, who shared one year at Penn, have a complicated history. In 2017, Trump acknowledged his “many years of friendship” with Lauder during a speech at the World Jewish Congress, an organization of which Lauder is president. In a statement from 2018, Lauder described his time with Trump at Penn as the beginning of a 50-year-long friendship that culminated in “working with him on some of the most complex diplomatic challenges imaginable.”
Lauder has also financially supported the GOP and other conservative campaigns, contributing a combined $200,000 to the Trump Victory, a joint fundraising organization with the Republican National Committee, between 2017 and 2019. Lauder’s support of the president resulted in a 2020 petition for his removal from the Estée Lauder board of directors.
In 2022, however, following Trump’s announcement of his third presidential bid, Lauder stated that he would not financially support the campaign. Still, Lauder attended Trump’s second presidential inauguration and issued a public statement welcoming Trump with “enthusiasm and great optimism.”
Lauder has donated extensively to Penn in the past, but announced the end of his support in October 2023 in response to the University's response to allegations of campus antisemitism.
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