In recent weeks, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has shown renewed interest in taking control of Greenland, Denmark’s largely autonomous territory in the Arctic and the world’s largest island.

He first expressed interest in buying Greenland in 2019 during his first term as president, but this week he went a step further, refusing to rule out taking control of Greenland through economic or military force.

Danish and European officials responded negatively, saying Greenland was not for sale and its territorial integrity must be preserved.

So how would this unusual situation play out, with two NATO allies at loggerheads over a vast territory that is 80 percent covered in ice but holds vast untapped mineral resources?

How will the desire for independence of a population of 56,000 in Greenland, which Denmark has controlled for 300 years, affect the final outcome?

Here we explore four possible scenarios for Greenland’s future.

There has been speculation that Trump’s move was a bluff and was intended to allow Denmark to bolster Greenland’s security in the face of threats from Russia and China seeking influence in the region.

last month, Denmark announces new $1.5bn (£1.2bn) military plan For the Arctic. The report was prepared ahead of Trump’s speech, but its announcement just hours after was described by Denmark’s defense minister as an “irony of fate.”

“The important thing Trump said is that Denmark must meet its obligations in the Arctic or the United States must do so,” said Politico chief political correspondent Elizabeth Swann.

Mark Jacobson, associate professor at the Royal Defense College of Denmark, believes that this is Trump’s “positioning before taking office” and Greenland takes this opportunity to gain more international authority as an important step towards independence.

So even if Trump now further loses interest in Greenland, which Professor Jacobson believes is the most likely scenario, he will certainly be paying attention to the issue.

But Greenlandic independence has been on the agenda for years, and some say the debate could even go in the opposite direction.

“I’ve noticed a calmer rhetoric from the Greenland prime minister over the past few days — which is, yes, we want independence, but in the long term,” Swane said.

There is a general belief in Greenland that independence will eventually happen, and that if Greenland votes for it, Denmark will accept it and ratify it.

However, Greenland is also unlikely to vote for independence unless Greenlandic people are guaranteed that they can keep the subsidies they currently receive from Denmark to pay for things like health care and welfare systems.

Senior Greenland researcher Ulrik Gad said: “The Greenlandic prime minister may be furious now, but if he does call a referendum he will need some kind of compelling narrative to save Greenland economic and welfare systems,” the Danish Institute for International Studies told the BBC.

A possible next step would be to establish a free association — like the one the United States currently has with the Pacific nations of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.

Denmark has previously opposed such status for Greenland and the Faroe Islands, but according to Dr Gadde, current Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is not explicitly opposed.

“Denmark’s understanding of Greenland’s historical experience is much better than it was 20 years ago,” he said. Denmark accepted colonial responsibility.

He added that recent discussions “could convince (Frederiksen) that it would be better to keep Denmark in the Arctic and maintain some connection, even a loose one” with Greenland.

But even if Greenland can escape Denmark, it has become clear in recent years that it cannot escape the United States. The Americans never really left the island after taking control of it in World War II and considered the island vital to their security.

A 1951 agreement confirmed Denmark’s basic sovereignty over the island but effectively gave the United States whatever it wanted.

Dr Gadd said Greenlandic officials had been in contact with the previous two US administrations about Washington’s role.

“They now know America will never leave,” he said.

Some people speculate that Trump’s economic rhetoric may be the biggest threat to Denmark – the United States significantly increases tariffs on Danish and even EU goods, forcing Denmark to make some concessions on the Greenland issue.

Professor Jacobson said the Danish government has been preparing for this, and not just because of the Arctic territory.

Trump has threatened to impose 10% tariffs on all U.S. imports, which could seriously disrupt European growth, and some Danish and other European companies are now considering setting up manufacturing bases in the United States.

Benjamin Cote of international law firm Pillsbury told MarketWatch that possible options for raising tariffs include invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA).

One of the main industries in Denmark that could be affected by this is the pharmaceutical industry. The United States imports from Denmark products such as hearing aids and most insulin, as well as the diabetes drug Ozempic, produced by Denmark’s Novo Nordisk.

Analysts say the price increases resulting from these measures will not go down well with the American public.

The “nuclear option” may seem far-fetched, but since Trump has failed to rule out military action, it must be considered.

Essentially, it wouldn’t be difficult for the United States to take control of Greenland because they already have bases and a large number of troops there.

“The United States already has de facto control,” Professor Jacobson said, adding that Trump’s comments appeared to lack information and that he did not understand their significance.

In other words, any use of military force by Washington would trigger an international incident.

“If they invade Greenland, they invade NATO,” Swane said. “So that’s the end of it. Article 5 has to be triggered. If a NATO country invades NATO, then NATO ceases to exist.”

Dr. Gard said Trump sounded like Chinese President Xi Jinping talking about Taiwan or Russian President Vladimir Putin talking about Ukraine.

“He said it was legal for us to seize the land,” he said. “If we’re really serious about him, it’s a bad sign for the Western Conference as a whole.”

Additional reporting by George Sandmann