LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump says he and the head of NATO have a, quote, "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic region." Details of this alleged deal have not been made public, and negotiations are still happening. And while Trump has been pursuing a takeover of Greenland, reporters have been looking into the business ties between his associates and the Danish territory. Journalists at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that a handful of Trump's former employees and staffers are pursuing mining interests in Greenland. The island has lots of rare earth minerals that are coveted by the tech and defense industries. Expanded access to Greenland could benefit companies with ties to Trump. That's what Kevin Hall and his colleagues found. He's the North American editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
KEVIN HALL: We found a number of people who either directly have been part of either the administration or the Trump organization, and/or, and also several people in the orbit who are now in positions of importance as it relates to Greenland.
FADEL: What was important about looking into these ties?
HALL: We knew that the CEO of one of these companies had ties to the first Trump term, and as we started looking a little more, we found further connections, and that was a surprise. The guy who runs the company we were looking at initially was Drew Horn. His company, GreenMet, is the trade name for Greentech Minerals Holding. And as we started looking more into GreenMet, we found that George Sorial, who was the Trump organization's longtime vice president, became executive vice president during the first Trump term. He was one of the shareholders in GreenMet. The third person was Keith Schiller, President Trump's longtime bodyguard. The two of them were involved as shareholders and directors of GreenMet with Drew Horn. And when we started asking questions, Horn made it clear they're no longer in any sort of management role. They issued a statement, Sorial - for the two of them issued a statement saying they're what they call passive investors, but it still means that if GreenMet continues to ink contracts, they would continue to benefit.
FADEL: What ethical concerns does this raise?
HALL: The ethical concerns are that because these are privately held companies because there's so little information and the nature of this entire conversation about Greenland, how it kind of exploded on the scene out of nowhere, raises questions about who's potentially benefiting. You know, follow the money is what our organization does, and so we were kind of interested in who potentially makes money off this.
FADEL: Trump has said openly that he's interested in Greenland's minerals. What did you find that was different or surprising when it comes to what Trump has said publicly and how people connected to Trump might benefit?
HALL: Publicly, there hasn't been a lot of definition other than it's a national security concern. We need to have it. I think if you step back and look at it just from a straight business standpoint, there's the clean energy sector, electric vehicles, who have a need for critical or rare earth minerals, and then you have the defense sector, who also needs that. And I think the backdrop to all this is China has gotten a running head start in terms of accessing these sorts of minerals. I think the driver behind that is probably that, and again, those two sectors. So going forward, I think a lot of reporters will be looking at those two sectors and what those ties are with the administration. But I think what's different is the lack of clarity as to why Greenland is suddenly oppressing, urgent, has-to-be-done-now type issue. And that, I think, is part of what makes this unusual.
FADEL: Kevin Hall is North America editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Thank you so much for your time and your reporting.
HALL: Thanks for having me.
FADEL: NPR reached out to GreenMet for comment on this reporting, and we have not heard back. We also asked the White House about the ethical questions raised in the report. A spokesperson said, in part, quote, "Greenlanders would be better served if protected by the United States from modern threats in the Arctic region."
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