Will the US take control of any part of Greenland?

The baseline case is that this does not happen. For the United States to acquire any part of Greenland, Denmark and likely Greenlandic authorities would need to agree to a transfer of sovereignty or territory, and that would face overwhelming resistance from local public opinion, Danish politics, NATO allies, and the broader international order. Greenland has a strong self-government framework and a clear path toward greater autonomy or even independence, but that is very different from ceding territory to the United States. History suggests that outright territorial purchases in the modern era are exceedingly rare, and the strategic value of Greenland can be pursued through defense cooperation, basing rights, and resource agreements without any transfer of land.

Arguments for Yes are mostly about leverage and possibility rather than probability. A U.S. administration could try to push a transaction involving a very small parcel, a base-area expansion, or a special-status enclave, and the broad wording of the question leaves some room for creative interpretation. If Trump or a successor were unusually aggressive, there could also be a low-probability diplomatic opening around Arctic security, mineral access, or a Greenland independence process that eventually leads to some territory changing hands. Even so, those pathways are long, politically fraught, and would require unusual alignment among multiple governments.

The market’s 27% implies a scenario where this becomes a serious policy possibility, but that looks far too high relative to the actual constraints. The more plausible interpretation is that traders are pricing in headline risk from Trump-era rhetoric and the ambiguity of what counts as “any part,” not a realistic expectation of a sovereign land transfer. Even allowing for a small chance of a narrowly defined deal, the true probability still looks in the low single digits rather than near one-third.