Dr. Phil and a Texas Oil Firm Go to Greenland With a Suspicious Agenda. Signs Point to Trump’s Imperialist Visions.

Of Course Dr. Phil Is Involved

There hasn’t been a ton of new reporting on a suspiciously-timed and blatantly Trump-linked project unfolding in a remote area of Greenland, so I wanted to use Where Things Stand today to help pull some of these threads together. It’s a convoluted story, of which we don’t have the entire picture, but it involves a Texas oil company with close ties to Trump’s imperialist visions in Greenland and, somehow, Dr. Phil.

The Guardian published a piece this weekend that both helped translate the Greenland government’s response and chronicle a bit more of what is going on in the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark that President Trump has repeatedly threatened to try to exert more U.S. control over throughout his second term.

A Texas-based oil company with ties to President Trump, called Greenland Energy, is reportedly readying resources to begin drilling in a remote area of Greenland even though it does not yet have permission to do so from the Greenland government and local officials. Locals living in the remote area of Greenland’s Nunap Qeqqa, or Jameson Land, have reported seeing drilling equipment being brought ashore and unloaded in the region in recent weeks and the Greenland government issued a “strong warning” against unauthorized actions in the area in a statement in late July.

“All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority — before they are carried out,” the Greenland government said, per The Guardian’s translation of this statement.

An ‘Unprecedented Arctic Energy Initiative’

Executives for Greenland Energy have said that they plan to embark on an “unprecedented Arctic energy initiative” in Jameson Land, claiming they have reason to believe that $1 trillion worth of crude oil may lie beneath the surface. The company has been posting regular announcements about its Jameson Land drilling campaign since April of this year. I sifted through them this afternoon to get a clearer picture of some of The Guardian’s reporting. The company has said it plans to spend $60 million drilling two wells in the area, though it appears that has since been scaled back to include just one well.

The issue is that Greenland has not issued new licenses for oil drilling since 2021. It appears as though the Texas-based group is working with 80 Mile, a UK company that has rights to drill in Jameson Land. In an Aug. 6 letter from Greenland Energy’s management and board of directors to shareholders, executives unpack the arrangement between the company and 80 Miles a bit, putting the onus for regulatory permissions on the UK-based firm. Per the letter:

While 80 Mile Plc, as licensee of the Jameson Land joint venture, continues to lead the permitting process and stakeholder engagement, Greenland Energy remains actively engaged in supporting technical planning, operational readiness, logistics, and overall project coordination. Together, our objective is to ensure that once all required approvals are received, the project is positioned to commence drilling safely, efficiently, and in accordance with Greenland’s rigorous regulatory standards.

Recent high-level meetings between project leadership and Greenlandic regulatory and oversight authorities have been constructive, and we continue to be encouraged by the progress being made toward the remaining approvals required for drilling.

Clear Ties to Trump

Looking through the company’s statements, Greenland Energy has some ties to Trump and, perhaps, the various imperialistic goals that have fueled some of the most outrageous decisions of his second term. In a statement announcing the Jameson Land project back in April, Greenland Energy cited “disruptions to key shipping corridors, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz” when explaining its goals for the project:

Escalating geopolitical tensions and renewed disruptions to key shipping corridors, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, are once again highlighting a persistent vulnerability: global energy security remains fragile. Despite years of diversification efforts, both the United States and Europe continue to face exposure to supply disruptions capable of cascading through economies, industries and households.

Personnel is another consideration. Greenland Energy announced in June that it had added Carol Craig to the company’s board of directors. Craig runs a space exploration and defense company that is heavily involved in Trump’s “Golden Dome” project, the missile defense plan that Trump has used as a basis for his ongoing argument that the “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for the U.S. (It’s worth noting that the chair of Greenland Energy’s board, Larry Swets, is reportedly known to have the president’s ear and has said publicly that the drilling project is “not related to American annexation,” per The Guardian.)

Add to the tangled web the fact that Greenland Energy and Envoy Media Company — which is owned by Phil McGraw, the right-wing Trump ally and TV doctor known as Dr. Phil — announced in June they’d developed a new partnership to create an “original docuseries” about the oil-drilling project, “hosted by Dr. Phil and spotlighting Greenland Energy Company’s Arctic exploration.” Here’s more from Dr. Phil’s announcement:

The docuseries will chronicle Greenland Energy’s historic Jameson Land Basin project and its planned 2026 campaign in East Greenland, the country’s first modern onshore oil exploration. The Arctic adventure series will capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters, as well as the people and character of the country of Greenland itself. The extensive and complex production will deploy top-flight filming techniques to overcome the region’s extreme and isolated conditions. The series is designed to inform, educate, while wildly entertaining audiences via this modern-day treasure hunt — its massive scope, technological innovation, life-changing social dynamics, and implications for energy security.

While the government of Greenland announced in its “warning” in July that the company did not have the necessary permissions secured for the project, it’s unclear how its partnership with 80 Miles factors in to those concerns. In the letter to shareholders on Thursday, Greenland Energy appeared to at least acknowledge the fact that it doesn’t have the necessary permissions to begin the project.

“Large-scale Arctic exploration campaigns require months of preparation before the first drill bit turns,” they wrote. “Waiting until permits are issued before initiating logistical preparations would unnecessarily delay operations and risk losing valuable time within Greenland’s limited operating season.”

While it issued a warning, the government of Greenland might also be weighing how Trump could react should the project not receive the necessarily approvals, according to The Guardian:

As a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, decisions about Greenland’s natural resources rest with its local elected leaders, who now face a delicate decision. They could grant permission for oil drilling, even though the planned wells appear to fall within a conservation area protected by the Ramsar convention on wetlands. Or they could refuse and, some worry, give Trump a pretext to advance his imperialist agenda.

Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has been threatening to take over Greenland, claiming that the U.S. has a right to seize the semi-autonomous territory from Denmark, supposedly due to American efforts to defend the territory during World War II. He has claimed that the U.S. taking over Greenland is “vital” for national security reasons and his Golden Dome project, which he believes will help the U.S. fend off attacks from adversaries like Russia and China.

It’s one of several hegemonic Trump II fever dreams that the President continues to elevate every few months — often in increasingly cryptic and ominous ways, like this AI generated Truth Social post from May.

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While Democrats found a way to pressure a candidate with credible allegations against them in time to not entirely ruin the party’s chances in a key race for the Senate (outcome, obviously, TBD), Republicans have taken a very different approach with Rep. Max Miller (R-OH). John Light explores this a bit more here: Max Miller Has Chosen to Brazen It Out, Setting Up Experiment for GOP

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