President Trump announced on Friday that he has a deal with Denmark to bolster the U.S. military presence in Greenland— an agreement that also keeps the Arctic territory in Denmark’s hands but not necessarily in control. Trump, in a social media post announcing the deal, said the agreement “gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns,” he said on Truth Social. He added that under the agreement his administration would “immediately” begin the process of developing a larger military presence on the mineral-rich Danish territory.
The Danish press report that while they have not seen the details of the agreement, they assume and hope that the agreement is just an updating of the 1952 agreement between the U.S. and Denmark, which maintained the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark, which comprises Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, but allowed the United States to have military bases on Greenland. It was the U.S. itself that decided to reduce its military bases from 17 to one.