Comment by OkayPhysicist

Frankly, the right move (before Trump did as Trump does, and fucked up our foreign relations) would have been to straight-up buy Greenland. The people of Greenland have the right under Danish law to vote for independence, and there's not that many of them. Paying individual people for the votes probably would have cost the US $10 billion, and then we could give them Puerto Rico-esque status.