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The polling is unequivocal: Americans absolutely don’t want to take over Greenland. They aren’t even on board with buying the semiautonomous territory that is part of Denmark—and crucially, isn’t for sale. 

That hasn’t dampened President Donald Trump’s push to acquire the world’s largest island, and on Wednesday he leaned into his real estate roots to urge buy, buy, buy. “The United States needs Greenland for National Security purposes,” Trump posted on social media hours before the top diplomats from Greenland and Denmark met for roughly 90 minutes at the White House with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

It’s a bold escalation against one of the United States’ most consistent allies, a move that has left European diplomats, U.S. business executives, and even Republicans in Washington increasingly puzzled. “I am sick of stupid,” Sen. Thom Tillis said last week in a remark about Trump’s expansionist dreams—a rare example of a Republican in Congress showing they still have backbone.

But there’s a catch that irks the President’s critics: virtually no politician can shift public opinion among fellow Republicans like Trump can. Two weeks before U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, an Economist-YouGov poll found just 22% of Americans supported military action; afterward, it reached 40%. Where did that jump come from? Support among Republicans nearly doubled from 43% to 78%.

Still, ousting a brutal autocrat in a narco-state is one thing. Trying to seize a sparsely populated Arctic tract is another. Trump isn’t wrong to see the geostrategic value in the territory; Greenland sits beneath the most likely path for ballistic missiles flying from Russia to the United States. He may well be very wrong, though, in judging the appetite for action—especially if it risks the post-World War II peace sustained by NATO.

A wave of recent polling suggests Greenland remains a tough sell, even for someone as skilled as Trump. A Reuters-Ipsos poll this week found just 17% of Americans want action on Greenland. But the partisan divide is worth noting: 40% of Republicans approved, while a mere 2% of Democrats did the same. On the question of using force, it was even worse for the White House: 71% opposed it, including 60% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats. And on the key question about the value of the NATO alliance, 40% of Republicans said they were worried Trump’s efforts to take Greenland could threaten the alliance. Among Democrats, that fear hits an almost unanimous 91%.

The Reuters numbers aren’t one-time results, either. Overall, 55% of Americans oppose the hypothetical purchase of Greenland—including 22% of Republicans—according to separate polling from Quinnipiac University. When using force is considered, a whopping 86% oppose the idea, including 68% of Republicans.

Trump has repeatedly shown indifference to polling or policies that don’t match his views. He has a history of latching onto an idea and pursuing it, often counting on his political base to fall in line and offset his unpopularity with Democrats. The question is often how long until his interest shifts. Recall, for a while he talked about making Canada a U.S. state before moving on to other fancies. He didn’t grow bored with the discussion of handling unrest in Venezuela; ultimately, he just decided to storm the country and bring its leader to New York to face drug charges.

Hence, the serious stakes as one of the strangest diplomatic crises of the Trump era appeared to escalate on Wednesday. Ahead of an uneventful White House meeting, Denmark announced it would increase “military presence in and around Greenland in the coming period, involving aircraft, ships, and soldiers” in cooperation with NATO allies. The White House had a different message: an image of Greenland dogsleds facing a choice between the White House or the Great Wall of China and the Russian Kremlin. Sticking with Denmark wasn’t an option in the drawing—which is why so many can’t dismiss this latest Trump outburst as something that will pass. The big unknown, of course, is how long Trump will keep pushing the idea—and whether Republicans will yield to his preferences.

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