Donald Trump has signed a security agreement with Denmark and Greenland that significantly expands the United States’ military role on the strategically important Arctic island, while stopping short of his earlier calls to acquire or annex the territory. The agreement, signed during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, permits two new US military bases, broad access for American aircraft and vessels and the possible deployment of a “Golden Dome” missile-defence system. It still requires approval from the parliaments of Denmark and Greenland.
The agreement follows months of tension after Trump repeatedly argued that Washington needed greater control over Greenland, which is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump has said the agreement gives the United States “permanent control” over Greenland’s security and other needs. The arrangement, however, does not transfer the territory to the United States. Reuters reported that the deal falls short of Trump’s long-standing objective of acquiring Greenland, while Denmark has maintained that its sovereignty is not being ceded.
According to the Observer UK, the agreement updates a 1951 US-Danish defence arrangement and represents the first major development of American military infrastructure on Greenland since the Cold War. It allows the establishment of two additional bases, gives US aircraft and vessels broad rights of access across Greenland and its territorial waters, prevents non-Nato states from establishing military installations on the island, restricts foreign investment in sensitive sectors and permits a “Golden Dome” system to be built there. Reuters reported that the two sites are Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland and Mestersvig on the east coast, while the United States can also expand its existing Pituffik Space Base.
The military relationship between Washington and Greenland predates the current dispute by decades. A 1951 agreement allowed the United States to establish military bases on the territory. At the height of the Cold War, roughly 10,000 US personnel were stationed there; that presence has since fallen to a few hundred. The Observer UK also notes that Danish troops suffered the third-highest casualty rate per capita among Nato members during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Greenland’s relationship with Denmark has its own long colonial history. Danish-Norwegian rule began with the arrival of a Danish-Norwegian man in 1721, while Danish trading posts effectively administered the island through a state monopoly from the 1770s, exchanging products including whale blubber for Danish goods. Greenland ceased to be a colony in 1953 but remains part of the Danish kingdom and now has extensive self-government.
Trump has nevertheless argued that Denmark has failed to protect the territory adequately. He first raised the possibility of buying Greenland during his first presidential term and intensified his demands this year, saying that if China or Russia wanted to occupy the island there would be “not a thing” the Danes could do. He subsequently threatened to buy, annex or take Greenland by force, despite the territory’s connection to Nato. The new agreement represents a substantial expansion of US military access without fulfilling the territorial acquisition that Trump had previously proposed.
The strategic argument behind the American push is tied to Greenland’s geography and resources. The island contains significant reserves of minerals and rare earth metals and lies close to the Northwest Passage and the theoretical Transpolar Sea Route. As Arctic sea ice declines, those routes are expected to become increasingly important to countries seeking access through the region. The agreement therefore places greater emphasis on preventing potential rival military and economic activity on Greenland.
The Observer UK analysis, however, notes that the threat from Russia and China on Greenland itself may be less developed than Trump’s rhetoric suggests. Chinese commercial and mining involvement on the island has already been retreating, while Russia has no military personnel or bases there. The proposed “Golden Dome” missile-defence system is also still a work in progress and has been dismissed by some analysts as unworkable.
For Denmark and Greenland, the agreement offers a framework for increased American military involvement while retaining formal territorial sovereignty. For Washington, it establishes a significantly stronger military position in the Arctic without the diplomatic and logistical consequences of governing an island three times the size of Texas. But the Observer UK analysis also points to a separate consequence of Trump’s campaign: his repeated attempts to obtain control of Greenland may themselves have strained Nato relations, even as the new agreement brings greater US military involvement in the territory under a framework involving Denmark and Greenland.
