In his second term, President Trump has made no secret of his desire to expand America’s northern borders. Canada, he says, “was meant to be the 51st state.” And he insists the island of Greenland — a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark — should belong to the U.S. as well.
“I think we’re going to get [Greenland],” Trump told Congress earlier this month. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
But according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, fewer than one in five Americans actually want the U.S. to “get” their northern neighbors.
The survey of 1,677 U.S. adults was conducted from March 20 to 24, just as the White House was announcing plans to send a delegation of senior officials, including second lady Usha Vance and national security adviser Michael Waltz, to Greenland later this week — plans that Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte B. Egede described as “highly aggressive.”
“The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us,” Egede said Sunday. The “mere presence [of Waltz] in Greenland will no doubt fuel American belief in Trump’s mission — and the pressure will increase.”
Yet that pressure is unlikely to come from the American public.
Asked by Yahoo News and YouGov whether they would “favor or oppose America annexing Greenland,” a mere 19% of respondents say they would favor the move.
The number who would favor “Canada becoming America’s 51st state” is even lower, at just 17%.
On the flip side, roughly half of Americans oppose annexing Greenland (49%), and a clear majority oppose acquiring Canada (57%). Another third or so — 26% for Canada, 32% for Greenland — say they’re not sure what to think.
Republicans tend to favor annexing Canada (26%) and Greenland (38%) at higher rates than Democrats (11% and 7%, respectively). But even then, the vast majority of Republicans are opposed or unsure.
At the same time, the idea is far from popular among independents, who tend to decide elections. A full 53% of these nonaffiliated Americans oppose annexing Greenland; 62% oppose adding Canada as the 51st state.
Trump seems undeterred, however. In his inaugural address, he vowed that the “United States will once again consider itself a growing nation — one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.”
Since then, the president has refused to rule out forcibly taking Greenland — a vast, ice-covered territory of growing geopolitical and economic importance — despite the fact that 85% of the island’s citizens oppose the idea. He also has ruptured 150 years of cordial relations with Canada, hitting America’s closest ally with steep new tariffs and repeatedly mocking the country’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor” Trudeau.
“We don’t need their cars. We don’t need their lumber. … We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything,” Trump recently told Fox News. “One of the nastiest countries to deal with is Canada.”
In contrast, more than two-thirds (69%) of Americans — including 60% of Republicans — view Canadians favorably, according to the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
Americans are more divided, meanwhile, over another question: whether Trump has spent the first two months of his second term “focused on America’s most important issues” (43%) or “focused on issues that aren’t very important” (45%).
__________________
The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,677 U.S. adults interviewed online from March 20 to 24, 2025. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 election turnout and presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted to the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.6%.
