Tom Dans — Trump’s appointee as chair of the United States Arctic Research Commission — had one thing he wanted to say on the record when New Yorker journalist Ben Taub met him for lunch in Washington. “My view is that the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce, and cut out the middleman, and keep it from China,” Dans told Taub, “and you could bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster.”
Except Red Lobster already brought back Endless Shrimp in April 2026 — at $24.99, up from the $20 price point that contributed to the chain’s 2024 bankruptcy. The company’s CEO had previously said he would never bring it back “because I know how to do math.” They brought it back in April, without needing to annex Danish territory.
Read: Red Lobster Brings Back Endless Shrimp, the Same Promotion that Caused Its Bankruptcy—Or Did It?
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Taub’s investigation — headlined “Inside the Ludicrous, Deadly Serious Plan to Take Over Greenland” — details how Dans and a small group of administration officials translated Trump’s Greenland fixation into an actual operational plan.
Dans pitched the White House and the Pentagon on deploying Chinook helicopters from the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment — the elite unit that conducts high-risk special operations raids — to Greenland under the cover of helping transport dogs for a national dogsledding race.
“Nobody was saying no,” Dans told Taub. The operation was not executed. The same aircraft and the same regiment flew Delta Force soldiers into Caracas at 1 AM on January 3, 2026, and kidnapped the Venezuelan president.
The administration’s actual case for Greenland is rare earth minerals and Arctic military positioning — blocking Chinese and Russian access to shipping routes and resource concessions as sea ice retreats.
Related: Trump Admits Greenland Is the Real Reason He Soured on NATO
However, the rare earth case is weaker than it sounds. Taub’s reporting found the US has more domestic rare earth deposits than it could ever need — the obstacle is permitting, not supply. And blocking China from Greenlandic concessions doesn’t require owning Greenland. It requires outbidding China for them.
Also read: While Trump Threatened to Take Greenland, the US Was Quietly Negotiating to Get What It Wanted
Red Lobster has not commented on the administration’s acquisition plans.
