There have been mumblings about mineral wealth, and about strategic bases. None of them really make a lick of sense.

It does not look as if it's serious. But this is a deeply unserious administration, so it's hard to guess.

IMO the reason is that he is a senile old man lashing out at the world. I really don't think there's a lot to it beyond that. Everyone else goes along with it because they know the administration's entire legitimacy comes from Trump and if/when he's gone the whole house of cards will collapse. That or they have their own focuses (e.g. Stephen Miller) and are happy for Greenland to be a distraction while they get on with their own stuff.

No one's really put out a strong case for it like that. You could argue it's a lot of land that's underpopulated and might be valuable in twenty years with global warming or something?

But the simpler answer is that Trump seems to personally like the idea of adding a big landmass to the US for ego reasons. He talked about it last term too with the same excuses mostly.

if there were more valuable reasons, talking publicly about it would only drive up the price.

> Does anyone really need to?

It feels like the rest of the post answers your own question. Yes, Vance and basically everyone below him know full well that the US acquiring Greenland would be utterly pointless and utterly disastrous.

But he won't let it go, and in the mean time he's doing lots of stuff with real world consequences like tariffs and incinerating alliances to try to get people to agree with his stupid idea. Can't even use it as a "negotiation chip" when its the fruits of actual completed negotiations being threatened and the US could put any military installations in Greenland they wanted if they said "please" instead of "we are going to take you over".