Donald Trump wants to have you believe he has just pulled off the deal of the century. In a post on X, he announced the US and Denmark have gone into an “Infinite Life” agreement, giving the US “permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland.” Groundbreaking stuff, except he’s pretty much reached the same deal that’s been in place for 75 years.
Since 1951, the US has had a permanent base on Greenland. All that’s really changed here is that the base is getting bigger, and Washington gets to add more as and when it pleases. It does not hand Trump the island he spent the best part of two years threatening to take by force, just old wine in new bottles. So, is this deal actually solving anything, or is Trump just rebranding an ancient agreement as a personal triumph? And if the latter, what does this mean for Greenland and Denmark?
Denmark kept sovereignty over Greenland in 1951; the US got expansive military access. Fast forward to 2026, and, despite a year of the President publicly musing about annexation, and Denmark deploying troops to Greenland alongside European allies, what they’ve settled on is Denmark and Greenland retaining sovereignty, and the US gets military access.
Greenland’s prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielson and Denmark’s foreign minister both seem largely optimistic, saying the deal recognises the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Kingdom, and they’re not wrong. If anything, Danes and Greenlanders may be laughing as they end up with more or less what they had before, minus the bit where their airspace gets invaded. So no, this isn’t a victory, and barely even a deal in the sense Trump wants Americans to picture.
Which raises the obvious question. If this arrangement is so modest, why were all the belligerent threats necessary in the first place? A former Pentagon official told Reuters that Washington could have got a lot of this through diplomacy, without a year of threats that opened up one of NATO’s worst internal rifts in history. Mikkel Oleson, a Danish security researcher went further, telling Al Jazeera that keeping Russian and Chinese bases off Greenland was barely a concession at all, given that neither the Danes nor Greenlanders ever wished for them to be anywhere near the island to begin with.
A big concern, that many aren’t even talking about, is that the deal, officials say, remains in force even if Greenland one day gains independence, binding them to an agreement it never even voted for. And “sensitive investments?” Greenland sits on 25 of the 34 minerals deemed critical by the EU, from rare earths to graphite – materials central to renewable energy technology and electronics manufacturing. So, Greenland, watch your back. Someone’s eyeing up what’s underneath your ice.
Image — Ittoqqortoormiit, formerly Scoresbysund, Greenland Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
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Is the US-Denmark deal really a “dream come true?”
Donald Trump wants to have you believe he has just pulled off the deal of the century. In a post on X, he announced the US and Denmark have gone into an “Infinite Life” agreement, giving the US “permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland.” Groundbreaking stuff, except he’s pretty much reached the same deal that’s been in place for 75 years.
Since 1951, the US has had a permanent base on Greenland. All that’s really changed here is that the base is getting bigger, and Washington gets to add more as and when it pleases. It does not hand Trump the island he spent the best part of two years threatening to take by force, just old wine in new bottles. So, is this deal actually solving anything, or is Trump just rebranding an ancient agreement as a personal triumph? And if the latter, what does this mean for Greenland and Denmark?
Denmark kept sovereignty over Greenland in 1951; the US got expansive military access. Fast forward to 2026, and, despite a year of the President publicly musing about annexation, and Denmark deploying troops to Greenland alongside European allies, what they’ve settled on is Denmark and Greenland retaining sovereignty, and the US gets military access.
Greenland’s prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielson and Denmark’s foreign minister both seem largely optimistic, saying the deal recognises the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Kingdom, and they’re not wrong. If anything, Danes and Greenlanders may be laughing as they end up with more or less what they had before, minus the bit where their airspace gets invaded. So no, this isn’t a victory, and barely even a deal in the sense Trump wants Americans to picture.
Which raises the obvious question. If this arrangement is so modest, why were all the belligerent threats necessary in the first place? A former Pentagon official told Reuters that Washington could have got a lot of this through diplomacy, without a year of threats that opened up one of NATO’s worst internal rifts in history. Mikkel Oleson, a Danish security researcher went further, telling Al Jazeera that keeping Russian and Chinese bases off Greenland was barely a concession at all, given that neither the Danes nor Greenlanders ever wished for them to be anywhere near the island to begin with.
A big concern, that many aren’t even talking about, is that the deal, officials say, remains in force even if Greenland one day gains independence, binding them to an agreement it never even voted for. And “sensitive investments?” Greenland sits on 25 of the 34 minerals deemed critical by the EU, from rare earths to graphite – materials central to renewable energy technology and electronics manufacturing. So, Greenland, watch your back. Someone’s eyeing up what’s underneath your ice.
The far-right has lost it’s fascist flair
Image — Ittoqqortoormiit, formerly Scoresbysund, Greenland Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
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