Protesters marched under the slogan “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people” in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, on Saturday, March 15, 2025.Ritzau Scanpix/Sipa/AP
President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States has reached an agreement with Denmark and Greenland to give the US “permanent control over security, and all other needs,” in Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark home to 56,000 people.
“This is an “Infinite Life” Agreement, there is no end!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “From now on, no U.S. adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval.”
The US military already enjoys sweeping access to Greenland under a treaty that dates to the 1950s.
The agreement has not yet been signed, and little is known about it beyond Trump’s social media posts. Denmark and Greenland said on Saturday that any agreement with the United States would not compromise Greenland’s sovereignty. And Trump’s words about expanding American military presence in Greenland may not mean much, considering that the US military already enjoys sweeping access to Greenland under a treaty that dates to the 1950s. Service members are, in fact, the single largest group of Americans currently present in the territory.
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, wrote in a post on Facebook that he is pleased with the potential deal. “The agreement recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our kingdom and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination,” he said. That suggests the agreement, whatever its specifics, does not involve fully annexing Greenland as Trump has repeatedly threatened to do in the past.
President Trump started floating the idea to annex Greenland in 2019, and he’s been saying that “the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” since at least 2024. His threats against Greenland ramped up in early 2026. He has claimed that Greenland is “surrounded” by Russian and Chinese ships, and has said he wouldn’t rule out military force or economic coercion as strategies to try and take over the territory.
Why is he so dead set on gaining more access to Greenland? Trump has sometimes said that the US must seize Greenland so Russia or China don’t. Other annexation threats have focused less on military dominion, and more on control over the area’s rare earth minerals and oil reserves. Several US companies already mine in Greenland, and 17 days ago, the US-based company Greenland Mines signed a deal purchasing the Sarfartoq Rare Earths Project in southwest Greenland for over $35 million. As my colleague Schuyler Mitchell wrote early this year, “from Venezuela to Cuba to Greenland, this administration is committed to bolstering the financial interests of US companies through imperial aggression. Political control over a foreign nation is less important than making sure Americans can profit there.”
President Trump, despite his ongoing interest in Greenland, sometimes confuses it with Iceland and once said he “hasn’t spoken to” any Greenlanders, thousands of whom protested against his threats in early 2026. Ninety percent of Greenland’s population is Indigenous, and a majority of Greenlanders support independence from Denmark—to say nothing of the United States.
“My immediate reaction [to the deal] is that it makes me nervous and skeptical,” Ellen Frederiksen, a retired teacher in Narsaq, a town in southern Greenland, told the New York Times.
“The way Trump presents it, it sounds as if he is being given a monopoly over Greenland,” she said. “I sincerely hope that isn’t the case.”
