The announcement of a deal regarding the future of Greenland hopefully ends a period of tension between the United States, Denmark, Greenland, and other European allies. U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed a triumphant deal, but the whole thing has been an exercise in pointlessness. Though more details, including the full text of the agreement, need to be released, much of what the purported deal accomplishes was either already the case or could have been achieved through diplomacy and without the threats of coercive action.
Trump has had a fascination with Greenland since his first term, when he explored options to buy the island. Since the start of his second term, Trump has appointed a special envoy to the island—and envoy who said that part of his role was to “make Greenland a part of the U.S.” He and other senior administration officials have made repeated statements emphasizing their belief that Greenland needed to be part of the United States.
The announcement of a deal regarding the future of Greenland hopefully ends a period of tension between the United States, Denmark, Greenland, and other European allies. U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed a triumphant deal, but the whole thing has been an exercise in pointlessness. Though more details, including the full text of the agreement, need to be released, much of what the purported deal accomplishes was either already the case or could have been achieved through diplomacy and without the threats of coercive action.
Trump has had a fascination with Greenland since his first term, when he explored options to buy the island. Since the start of his second term, Trump has appointed a special envoy to the island—and envoy who said that part of his role was to “make Greenland a part of the U.S.” He and other senior administration officials have made repeated statements emphasizing their belief that Greenland needed to be part of the United States.
European nations issued their condemnation of Trump’s threats of territorial annexation and worked to demonstrate their commitment to the defense of Greenland, and some even surged troops to the island. Now, both sides are cautiously optimistic about the new agreement, though its outcomes do not seem fundamentally different than what could have already been accomplished under the existing 1951 Defense of Greenland Treaty.
Crucially, the new deal affirms the sovereignty of both Denmark and Greenland, marking a blow to Trump’s initial ambitions to annex the territory. But the sovereignty of Greenland was never in question before. Greenlanders had made clear their desire for future independence from Denmark in the past but had largely ruled themselves since the 2009 Greenland Self-Government Act.
The new deal reportedly blocks non-NATO nations, including adversaries such as China or Russia, from building military bases on the island. Yet there was no indication that they were planning to do so already, or that Denmark would ever allow them to do so. The agreement would also ban nonallies from investing in the critical minerals and mining sectors—but existing policies have already blocked scattered attempts to do so.
Trump also said, though there was no immediate confirmation, that the new deal would remain in place even if Greenland were to eventually become an independent nation, allowing the United States to maintain an indefinite presence.
Though Trump announced that Washington would immediately begin scaling up its military footprint on the island, there is no reason that it could not have done so already. The United States previously maintained a sizable military presence in Greenland that has steadily shrunk since the end of the Cold War.
The agreed-upon deal, which is expected to be signed this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, marks an end to a disagreement that saw tensions sink to a low point in the trans-Atlantic relationship and had no reason to begin, save for Trump’s focus on territorial expansion.
As a sign of how bad things have become, a poll among Danes in May found that just 7 percent of them viewed the United States as an ally. That’s a shocking fall for the image of the United States in Denmark compared to the almost 30 percent of Danes that viewed the United States as an ally in 2024. The signing of the deal alone is unlikely to significantly repair this or stop Europe’s slow break from the United States. European nations are choosing local companies over their U.S. counterparts; the European Union has struck a series of new trade deals; and European countries are taking action to bolster their own defense capabilities, now unsure if the United States really would come to NATO’s defense.
At best, the latest deal is a pyrrhic victory. The United States has achieved marginal changes in the defense agreement at the cost of undermining trust in the NATO alliance at a time when both Washington and its allies are facing a variety of increased geopolitical threats worldwide. But there are two initial steps that the United States can take from this moment to rebuild trust with allies and build a more productive path forward for Arctic security and Greenland.
First, the United States will likely take steps to increase its military presence on the island, but it should explore ways to bring other NATO allies into the picture. The Arctic is a rapidly changing geopolitical environment marked by the increasing presence of adversaries such as China and the established presence of Russia in the region. New bases in Greenland could host troops from other NATO countries, building out an expanded allied military presence on and around the island. The Arctic Sentry initiative already exists as a NATO mission focused on the high north; the United States and its allies can build from this starting point.
Second, the new deal lays the groundwork for U.S. and allied businesses to expand their investments in Greenland. While the White House is celebrating its newfound ability to block investments in critical sectors by nonallies, the United States should look beyond this and find ways to diversify its own economic offerings to Greenlanders. There is already demand in Greenland to expand the island’s economic potential, but investing in sectors such as critical minerals is likely to be challenging.
Greenland lacks much of the required infrastructure to make mining possible, and the harsh Arctic environment is hard to build in. Some Greenlanders themselves have also voiced their opposition to mining activities, citing environmental concerns. Other sectors, such as tourism, are easier in the short term, and the announcement of the deal can lay the groundwork for a more stable business environment.
Ultimately, however unnecessary the clash to begin with, the news of a deal between the United States, Greenland, and Denmark is a positive step forward that can mark the end of a tumultuous period in the trans-Atlantic relationship. The next challenge for the United States is to translate its desire for and attention to Greenland into concrete actions that bolster the security of the Arctic for all parties involved.
