Following President Donald Trump’s dramatic September 18 social media announcement of an “infinite life” deal for US control of Greenland’s defense and foreign investments, the agreement was formally signed in New York four days later by Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
A healthy dose of skepticism would be wise for anyone who has followed this saga, even peripherally, regarding whether the deal truly settles the matter for the remainder of the President’s term.
What has been consistent in the President’s rhetoric on Greenland for seven years is his attachment to ownership as the route to control of the world’s largest island. In his second inaugural address, Trump promised an America that “increases our wealth, expands our territory . . . and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.” He has returned again and again to the idea that past American leaders failed to buy or hold onto territory they should have secured. With an unhappy electorate, stubbornly high consumer prices, and midterm elections six weeks away, a clean, unambiguous public relations policy win could be politically helpful right now.
Much of the post-announcement commentary has focused on the defense elements of the deal: permanent US basing rights, expanded military access, and a ban on non-NATO bases on the island. These are important and strong commitments to common defense, but they are not new ground. They build directly on the 2020 framework agreement between Greenland, Denmark and the United States, and on the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement that first gave Washington the legal basis to operate there under NATO cover. For all intents and purposes, the deal is a return toward the heightened alert status quo of 40 years ago. And notably, sovereignty remains in the hands of Denmark and Greenland.
At its Cold War peak, the US maintained 17 installations across Greenland and over 10,000 personnel. That presence was drawn down steadily from the late 1960s onward, leaving only Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with roughly 200 American military personnel working side-by-side with 250 Danish and Greenlandic contractors. The new agreement gives Washington renewed permission to rebuild some of that older footprint.
The second reason Trump has consistently given for why the US “has to have” Greenland is economic: the island holds what is often cited as the world’s eighth-largest reserve of unexploited critical minerals, alongside undeveloped oil and gas. China tried to make strategic investments in Greenlandic infrastructure and mining between 2014 and 2018 — a bid to build three airports and a stake in the Kvanefjeld rare-earth project among other things — but was ultimately blocked, largely at Washington’s urging and conveyed via Copenhagen.
At that time, Greenland was courting outside investment like many small nations with development aspirations. The dominant driver, documented in Danish and Swedish research, was Greenland’s 2009 shift to self-rule and the resulting push to diversify its economy away from dependence on the annual Danish block grant, as a precondition for eventual independence.
That push was sharpened by a specific, significant economic hit: in 2014, the US Department of Defense moved the Thule Air Base maintenance contract from the Greenlandic-Danish operator that had held it for decades to a US company, stripping Greenland of a reliable and significant stream of tax revenue and local jobs. Only in 2022 did the parties agree to revert to a majority Greenlandic-Danish contractor.
The maintenance contract withdrawal is not why Greenland was open to Chinese capital, but it removed a dependable income source at precisely the moment Nuuk was looking for alternatives to fill its treasury, meaning that Washington’s own basing decisions laid some of the groundwork for the outcomes it has since scrambled to prevent. Memories are obviously still focused on this; the new deal specifically obligates the United States to “award all contracts . . . to Greenlandic sources to the maximum extent possible”.
This is where the new deal deserves closer scrutiny. The agreement restricts “sensitive” investment in Greenland to investors from the US and its NATO and EU allies. This goes further and faster than Greenland’s own long-pending domestic screening bill, which has been working through its parliament for the better part of a year. On paper, this is strict — a blanket exclusion rather than a case-by-case review. But strictness on paper is not the same as capacity in practice.
Greenland does not yet have a screening authority or track record of vetting complex ownership structures or beneficial-interest disclosures. Additionally, Greenland’s small civil service and limited domestic human resources are bureaucratic hurdles to be jumped. The domestic bill, notably, would not even have covered US military-adjacent activity, which stays under Danish jurisdiction. Whether the new commitment is backed by an actual institution staffed and capable to identify disguised political interests will be the real test of this deal’s economic substance.
The deal still requires parliamentary approval in both Copenhagen and Nuuk, a process that has historically taken months if not longer: the 2023 US-Denmark Defense Cooperation Agreement took two years to clear Denmark’s parliament.
With Danish and Greenlandic public warmth toward Washington at historic lows (earlier this year, 60% of Danes said they consider the US to be an adversary while 76% of Greenlanders do not want to be part of the US) and US midterms likely to hand Democrats a stronger congressional hand within six weeks, the ratification process — not this week’s signing — is where this agreement’s durability will actually be decided.
Sharon Hudson-Dean is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House in London. She is a senior foreign policy leader with more than 30 years of diplomatic experience managing complex global, defense, political, and strategic challenges. Most recently, she served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Northern Europe, NATO, and Arctic Security (2024-25).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
