President Donald Trump has not let his interest in acquiring Greenland slide, telling Congress earlier in the week that he thinks “we are going to get it”.

“One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump said in as blunt a message as there could be to the 56,000 Greenlanders who for three centuries have lived under the protective skirt of Denmark, more recently as an autonomous province on all things other than defence and foreign policy.

“We will keep you safe. We will make you rich, and together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. It’s a very small population, but a very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security,” Trump said.

His pitch for ownership of the world’s biggest island follows on from previous attempts by the US to make Greenland its own in 1867 and 1946, and more recently in Trump’s first administration.

In a real sense, Greenland, with its frigid but geopolitically strategic location, is already in the arms of the US. The US has operated a military base there since 1951 which comes with a 10,000-foot runway and access to a deepwater port.

Its task is to monitor and intercept any ballistic missiles that come flying out of Russia towards Europe, among other things. So Trump’s comment that Greenland is very, very important for US military security was not an exaggeration.

What is different this time from Trump’s earlier pitches in his first administration for the US to acquire Greenland is his recent references to its status as a source of critical minerals and rare earths. There was no mention of that in his address to Congress.

But there was a reference to critical minerals and rare earths, with Trump saying he planned to “take historical action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA’’.

MP Materials, the lead US rare earths player from a mine in California and a new alloy and magnet plant in Texas, shot 15% higher on Trump’s commentary. Australia’s richest person and MAGA fan, Gina Rinehart, will be pleased.

Her Hancock Prospecting now owns 8.5% of the company. It also owns 8.2% of Lynas Corp (ASX:LYC) which produces rare earths at Mt Weld in WA for processing in Kalgoorlie, Malaysia and a new separation plant in Texas.

Lynas shares did not share the MP enthusiasm for Trump’s comments in Thursday’s market. Its shares were up a modest 0.14%, indicating that Trump’s “historical action to dramatically expand production in the USA” has more to do with MP than it does Lynas.

Energy Transition Metals (ASX:ETM):

All of the above is by way of background to today’s main interest – ASX-listed Energy Transition Minerals (ASX:ETM), a 7.5c stock with a market cap of $115m.

Go back to November 5 when the US voted for Trump and the stock was 2.2c.

The 240% gain since reflects ETM sitting at the cross-roads of the race to secure non-China rare earth supplies for the energy transition, and military applications, along with Trump’s renewed push for ownership of Greenland.

For more than 15 years ETM has been advancing the Kvanefjeld rare earths project near the town of Narsaq in south-west Greenland. In terms of contained rare earth oxides, it is the world’s biggest resource.

But it also comes with 300ppm uranium which ETM originally planned to produce, along with zinc and fluorspar. But the green-leaning government passed legislation in 2021 banning mine developments involving projects where the uranium count was more than 100ppm.

It was a devilish bit of work which ETM is challenging on the basis it was an act of appropriation. Although ETM later dropped uranium from its development plans for Kvanefjeld, the government made clear it would not be granting the required exploitation licence.

ETM’s legal action is against the Greenland government and Copenhagen. Interestingly enough, there is an election in Greenland on March 11. It’s not a referendum on uranium but there is a chance the next coalition government is more sympathetic to ETM’s ambitions.

The world has moved on since the uranium act stymied ETM’s Kvanefjeld’s plans.

There is a global recognition that rare earths are central to the energy transition and the massive military modernisation and build-up programs Europe is now planning in response to the US indicating that it does not necessarily have the same concerns Europe does over a war threat from Russia.

Then there is the acceptance that uranium has to be part of the energy transition if there is any hope of net zero commitments being met. ETM has not proposed bringing back uranium as part of the Kvanefjeld story.

But who knows, under a US-owned scenario, things could be different. More telling is what Trump’s push for ownership of Greenland and his ambitions for making the US great in rare earths means for Kvanefjeld.

Kvanefjeld’s planned rare earth concentrates would have to go somewhere. Might as well be to a (mainland) US address. Notably, the last time Trump said he wanted to acquire Greenland, ETM became a 30c stock.

James Bay (ASX:JBY):

The gold stocks are looking at closing the week nice and strong thanks to the gold price mounting a fresh challenge on $US3,000/oz ($A4,728).

It got close on February 24 by hitting $US2,950/oz. Some profit taking pulled it back down but we have had an outbreak of inflation-inducing tariff/trade wars, and Donald Trump’s address to Congress since.

State Street Global Advisors, the world’s fourth biggest asset manager, reckons $US3,000/oz gold is well within reach.

Its Gold Monitor report for March said the price will consolidate first before hitting $US3,000/oz.

“Gold prices appear to be consolidating between the higher end of our 2025 base case range (50% probability) of $US2,600-$US2,900/oz and the lower end of our bull case range (30% probability) of $US2,900-US3,100/oz,” State Sreet said.

“We continue to lean towards a price break above $3,000/oz over the next one to four months.’’

It is cheering stuff for the ASX gold sector although there is the usual lament that the market is a bit like the banks cutting interest rates in that it is slow to reprice the gold stocks for what in Aussie dollars is currently a fantastic $A4,600/oz.

The North American market was much more forthcoming in repricing gold stocks, probably because there remains a suspicion that the Trump administration might yet include gold in its tariff wars with rest of the world.

There were signs in Thursday’s market that some of the North American enthusiasm for gold spilled over into local stocks with interests in North America.

James Bay Minerals (ASX: JBY) may well have been a beneficiary with its shares popping 9.8% higher to 56c for a market cap of about $50 million.

A more likely explanation though is the local market was catching up with JBY’s maiden resource estimate for its Independence gold project in Nevada.

It was stated as 1.36 million ounces split into 984,412oz at 6.67 g/tonne in a skarn resource and 385,000oz of lower grade near-surface material.

The maiden resource estimate under the JORC code is a step up from the foreign reserve estimate announced with the company’s pick-up of Independence in November last year.

The estimate is also very much the start of the story at Independence which has the Phoenix operation of the Barrick/Newmont joint venture as is immediate neighbour.

First production from a heap leach operation that the Nevada gold industry is famous for doing with low-grade material at some of the lowest costs anywhere is a likely near-term ambition while the bigger picture of the skarn mineralisation unfolds.