Donald Trump said Friday that the United States had reached a security agreement with Denmark and Greenland giving Washington "permanent control over security" in Greenland and barring Russia and China from setting up bases. The deal follows months of threats by Trump to take the semi-autonomous Danish territory, including by force. NATO welcomed the agreement, which is expected to be signed on September 22 during the UN General Assembly in New York, PTS reported.
What does the agreement contain? No text has been released. A US State Department official said it grants "permanent access, basing and overflights rights," bans non-NATO countries from building bases and blocks adversaries such as Russia and China from investing in "sensitive sectors," the BBC reported. The official said the US could build additional military structures without approval from Greenland or Denmark, and that the deal would not expire even if Greenland became independent. Trump said it came at "no cost to the United States" and that Washington would "immediately" begin expanding its military presence on the island.
How did Denmark and Greenland respond? Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement that the deal recognises "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination." Frederiksen called the agreement "great for NATO and Europe," DW reported, and Nielsen said it recognised "Greenland's interests and our place in the international cooperation." Neither government has detailed the deal's contents or verified the specifics Trump described, and parliamentary approval is still needed in both before it can take effect.
What remains unclear? Key details, including the scale of the US military presence and whether any formal power over foreign policy and resources would pass to Washington, have not been made public, the Korea Times reported. A 1951 pact with Denmark already allows the US to deploy forces in Greenland, and it is not clear how the new deal differs. Danish commentators cast the agreement as a diplomatic win for Copenhagen, the Japan Times reported. Ulrik Pram Gad of the Danish Institute for International Studies, quoted in an AP report carried by PBS NewsHour, said Trump "obviously didn't get in this agreement what he originally set out to have." Reaction in Greenland was mixed, PTS reported, with one resident saying they fully trusted Greenland's politicians to strike a good deal. "Trump should stay far, far, far away from Greenland," Marianne Hansen, a 71-year-old retired chef, told Reuters in Nuuk, the Korea Times reported.
Figures referenced: Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
