A Trump official has a fix for Red Lobster's all-you-can-eat shrimp. Step one: have the U.S. buy Greenland.
There is just one problem. The shrimp deal is already back.
Tom Dans chairs the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. He is a Trump appointee.
He is one of a small group pushing the Greenland idea. He made his case over lunch with a reporter from The New Yorker.
The U.S. could take all the seafood Greenland produces, he said. It could cut out the middleman and keep the catch from China.
And it could "bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster." It is a memorable line.
It is also out of date.
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Red Lobster brought Endless Shrimp back in April 2026. No Arctic territory was required.
The big change this time is the price. It now runs about $25 a person.
The old version cost about $20. That cheap deal buried the chain in losses.
One quarter alone saw about $11 million in red ink. It helped tip Red Lobster into bankruptcy in 2024.
The new CEO, Damola Adamolekun, had said he would never bring it back. His reason: "because I know how to do math."
Then he brought it back, at a price that finally adds up. He announced the return on live morning TV.
The deal is back for a limited time only. The chain wants the buzz without the old losses.
Strip away the shrimp and the real pitch is about minerals. Owning Greenland is also about military position.
A New Yorker investigation laid out the whole plan. It traced Trump's interest in Greenland back to 2018.
The push has gone on for years, with little to show. Greenland is part of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally.
Greenland holds rare earth metals. These metals go into phones, cars, and fighter jets.
Its spot on the map helps control Arctic shipping lanes. Those lanes open up as the ice melts.
But the mineral case is weaker than it sounds. The U.S. already has more rare earths than it needs.
The real holdup is permitting, which means getting mines approved. It is not a shortage in the ground.
To keep China out, the U.S. would need to outbid it, not own the island. The whole place is home to only about 57,000 people.
Buying it would not even speed up mining there. Permits, not territory, are the real holdup.
Owning Greenland for rare earths is a strange trade. It is like buying a whole supermarket for the eggs in aisle five.
The eggs are already in your fridge. The shrimp, it turns out, were too.
Red Lobster's comeback came from pricing, not new turf. It raised the price so the deal would stop losing money.
Red Lobster has not weighed in on the Greenland plan.
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