On April 10, 2025, The New York Times published an article titled, "Inside Trump's Plan to 'Get' Greenland: Persuasion, Not Invasion." It was an overview of U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to acquire the Arctic island of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark that's home to about 57,000 people and a whole lot of natural resources.
But one particular paragraph left a number of posts on social media sites including Facebook, Reddit and YouTube claiming the Trump administration wanted to give each Greenlander $10,000 per year in order to annex the island into the U.S.
As people shared the reporting, the information presented in the story was slightly distorted. The New York Times wrote the following:
The Trump administration is also studying financial incentives for Greenlanders, including the possibility of replacing the $600 million in subsidies that Denmark gives the island with an annual payment of about $10,000 per Greenlander.
Assuming the Times' original reporting was accurate, the claims it inspired on social media were somewhat true but lacked context.
Snopes also reached out to the Trump administration for comment on the story.
"There is currently no plan for direct stipends to Greenlanders. However, the Trump Administration is considering a number of ways to comprehensively improve upon their financial circumstances."
The social media posts did get one thing right (again, if the New York Times' reporting was accurate): The Trump administration, at some point, considered the idea of giving residents of Greenland $10,000 (yearly). Many of these posts framed the payments as "bribes" — implying the payments would be a way to convince Greenlanders to support joining the United States.
If such payments are to be thought of as bribes, however, they're not very good ones. The Times noted that $10,000 in yearly payments to each of Greenland's roughly 57,000 residents was floated as a replacement for the $600 million in subsidies the Danish government provides the entire territory. A bit of quick math reveals that Trump's supposed payment plan would give Greenland residents as a whole $570 million each year — in other words, the island would receive $30 million less under Trump's supposed plan than it currently gets from Denmark.