This story was updated on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, to add a reference to Rep. Carter’s “fair tax” bill.
Coastal Georgia Congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter wants people to know he really means it when he says the U.S. should buy Greenland, the largest island in the world, and rename it “Red, White and Blueland.”
That proposal, contained in a bill that Carter introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last week, would authorize President Donald Trump to enter negotiations to purchase the island, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark that is more than 14 times the size of Georgia with roughly the same number of people — 57,000 — as Valdosta.
Never mind that the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark say the island isn’t for sale and never will be. Carter is bullish.
Extending America’s borders more than 2,000 miles eastward to include a newly renamed Greenland is a declaration that America is back and will soon be bigger than ever, Carter declared in a news release a day after unveiling the “Red, White and Blueland Act of 2025.”
In Carter’s view, it’s only a question of when, not if, the “Negotiator-in-Chief inks this monumental deal” and Greenlanders are welcomed to “join the freest nation to ever exist.”
It’s all heady stuff, even in the face of ridicule from some Coastal Georgia Republicans, who are deriding Carter’s proposal to rebrand Greenland “Red, White and Blueland.”
“It’s embarrassing,” said a Glynn County Republican who voted for Trump and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive party relationships. “Every Republican I talk to about it is embarrassed.”
Carter, though, remains undaunted.
‘A price for everything’
In television interviews following Carter’s introduction of the bill, he sought to make a serious case for the measure, which he calls a “game-changer for America’s security & energy independence.”
In one interview, with the conservative news outlet Newsmax, he launched into a list of talking points that appeared aimed at quieting suggestions that his bill was a political stunt.
Greenland’s location makes it “extremely important as a national security priority for us, “not to mention,” he said, its rare earth minerals that would “propel us to energy dominance here in America.”
As for the insistence by Greenlandic and Danish officials that the arctic island isn’t for sale, now or ever, the 67-year-old Carter, who operated a retail and institutional pharmacy business in Chatham County, delivered a line that could well have come from Trump himself.
“I was in business for 32 years, and something’s not for sale until it is for sale,” he said. “There’s a price for everything.”
Carter went on in the interview to suggest that renaming Greenland “Red, White and Blueland” was actually a selling point to the Arctic island’s current inhabitants.
Christening Greenland “Red, White and Blue Land” would signal to Greenlanders that America’s acquisition of their island wasn’t driven simply by the desire to access the mineral wealth underneath their feet and keep the Chinese and Russians at bay.
“We ought to rename it after the freest country in the world. That would give an indication to the people [of Greenland] that now, they’re a member of the freest country in the world.”
Carter told WTOC-TV in Savannah he’s optimistic about the bill’s passage, saying it should have bipartisan support.
‘Slim to none’
At the moment, however, the chances of passage appear slim to none.
As of Monday, no member of the Republican-led House of Representatives had signed on to the “Red, White and Blueland Act of 2025.” It’s been assigned to two committees for further action — foreign affairs and natural resources — but no hearings have been scheduled.
GovTrack.us, which monitors legislative activities on Capitol Hill, gives Carter’s bill, House Resolution 1161, a 4% chance of passage in the Republican-controlled House.
Carter’s Greenland bill is one of a flood of bills that were introduced by House Republicans following Donald Trump’s election in November and aimed at celebrating the 47th president’s return to office and ingratiating themselves to those in their districts who voted for him.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, of Florida introduced a bill to put Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore. Freshman Rep. Addison McDowell, from North Carolina, has a bill to rename Dulles International Airport in Trump’s honor. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, introduced proposals to help Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico and expunge his two impeachments.
Carter’s legislation wasn’t even the first Greenland-related bill.
A week before Trump was sworn in for a second term in as president, Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who floated a constitutional amendment that would let Trump seek a third term in the White House, introduced H.R. 361, the “Make Greenland Great Again Act.”
Like Carter’s measure, it authorizes the president to enter into negotiations to buy the island. The bill originally had seven co-sponsors. As of Monday, it had 16. Carter wasn’t one of them. It was given a 2% chance of passage.
Currying favor
Carter’s office didn’t respond to requests on Monday to discuss the bill and its prospects. The measure’s rollout indicates, however, that the bill’s passage wasn’t Carter’s main goal. It may not have been the point, at all.
Like many members of Congress, the five-term congressman from St. Simons is practiced in the use of so-called messaging bills, measures that have little or no chance of passage but nonetheless serve to show your audience — most often your voting base — that you care about a certain issue while your political opponents don’t.
The single piece of legislation for which Carter is perhaps most known and has most promoted during his tenure in Congress is a messaging bill — a resolution that calls for replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax.
Though knowing the measure has no chance of being enacted into law, he has co-sponsored or spearheaded some form of the measure since entering the House in 2015.
The current version of the bill, the “Fair Tax Act of 2025,” also calls for the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service. It currently has 13 co-sponsors, all Republican, in the 435-member House, and has a 0% chance of passage, according to GovTrack.us.
In the whirlwind of executive orders and proclamations that have accompanied Trump’s return to the White House, how also to draw the president’s attention with such messaging bills and curry his favor has become more challenging.
Carter’s Greenland bill potentially succeeds on that score by doing Ogles’ one better.
It not only authorizes Trump to enter sales talks with Denmark; taking a cue from Trump’s renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, it calls for renaming the island altogether.
There’s no need to even wait for a completed deal to change the name.
Under Carter’s resolution, the relabeling of Greenland in official maps and other government documents would begin immediately with the measure’s passage, deal or not. Within 180 days of the bill’s passage, the Interior Department would be required to change all official references to the Arctic island to “Red, White and Blueland.”
The bill, with its catchy, eminently quotable title, was unveiled in the pages of the New York Post, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch and a longtime favorite of Trump. Within hours, his office posted the story on the congressman’s Facebook page, tweeted out a graphic of the renamed Greenland, and issued a press release. Television interviews followed.
Electoral politics
More than anything, it appears, Carter’s latest messaging bill appears to be motivated by electoral politics.
Drawing the president’s attention and currying his favor is especially important to Carter’s political future. He has already expressed interest in running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jon Ossoff.
Top Republican Party officials are lobbying Gov. Brian Kemp to enter the race for the GOP nomination. If Kemp opts not to run, there are other Republicans besides Carter poised to take on Ossoff, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John F. King, and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins of Jackson.
Trump’s endorsement, if he chooses to offer one, will be crucial in the race.
Meanwhile, the “Red, White and Blueland Act of 2025” can serve Carter by riling up Democrats and liberals and showing his voter base in Georgia — especially those who vote in Republican primaries — his embrace of Trump’s views and raising money from them.
‘A serious time’
Notably absent from Carter’s talk about his bill is any mention of the cost of acquiring the world’s largest island, which presumably would be borne by the U.S. taxpayer.
Carter also ignores Trump’s refusal to rule out the use of U.S. military force to take over the island.
And while some U.S. conservatives see the acquisition of Greenland as opportunity to open a new American frontier and revive the “frontier mentality” and “settler spirit” of 19th-century America, there’s alarm in Greenland and Denmark, where Carter’s bill has been reported in major newspapers.
Declaring that “we are in the midst of a serious time, a time we have never experienced in our country,” Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Bourup Egede, has scheduled general elections next month. Fearing foreign attempts to subvert the election, lawmakers are calling for a ban on foreign and anonymous political party donations.
Meanwhile, local politicians urge cooperation, not takeover. “You cannot own another country; you cannot control another country, but you can have a partnership with it,” Aaja Chemnitz, Greenlandic Member of the Danish Parliament, said earlier this month.
‘We’re talking about big things again’
In Coastal Georgia, Republicans are scratching their heads about Carter’s bill, wondering if it reflects the vision of America First they signed up for when they handed Trump and Carter sweeping victories in November.
A conservative Republican from Chatham County said she supported any measure, including the acquisition of Greenland, that has the “potential to grow American prosperity.”
“The man [Trump] is a master negotiator,” she said on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive party relationships. “Let him go and see what happens.”
The Glynn County Republican who said he and other GOP voters were “embarrassed” by Carter’s renaming proposal, said he wasn’t opposed to acquiring Greenland, as long as its people agreed. “I don’t want people joining us who don’t want to be with us.”
Carter, like Trump, is steadfast.
In his interview with Newsmax, Carter insisted that Trump is just as serious about acquiring Greenland as his bill is about authorizing it.
For Trump, talk of acquiring Greenland isn’t just “making noise,” he said. “He is trying to position us in America here for the future.”
The former state senator and Pooler mayor said he had never seen such “enthusiasm” and “excitement” in Washington.
“Finally, we’re talking about big things again,” he gushed. “We’re talking about buying Greenland. We’re talking about the Gulf of America. We’re talking about Canada being the 51st state, about the Panama Canal. God bless Donald Trump. This is just great.”
What a grandstanding fool! The sophisticated and educated people of Georgia’s first district deserve better. Savannah and surrounding district, you are better than this! Let’s return to the time when Georgia produced serious statesmen.