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Posted on 09/21/2026 8:49:49 AM PDT by Angelino97
The Great Greenland Crisis has ended, and Donald Trump has declared victory. Last Friday, the president announced that he had reached a deal with the Danes that would give “the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns.” The barren, icy prize is finally ours.
Or is it? Despite the usual bluster, bravado, and social media posts showing Greenland colored in with the Stars and Stripes, Trump’s avowed aim of annexation was not accomplished.
The Dannebrog will still flutter in the Arctic breeze. According to a statement put out by Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen Friday, the deal “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom [of Denmark] and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination.”
Nor does the new agreement appear to give American firms new economic privileges, another reason Trump has cited for taking the island (although, interestingly, it does come two weeks after a U.S.-based company closed a deal for a big Greenlandic mining concern).
Rather, so far as can be determined without seeing the actual text—which is due out this week, to be signed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly—the deal amounts to a kind of tinkering with the status quo.
Since 1951, the U.S. military presence in Greenland has been governed by the Greenland Defense Agreement, a short but sweeping pact that grants the U.S. military basing and access rights across the territory for an indefinite period of time. It was under this agreement that we constructed a network of about a dozen installations during the Cold War, all but one of which we closed down after the Soviet Union fell. (The surviving base was Thule, now renamed Pittufik in a nod to Inuit sensibilities.)
And most of the benefits the White House has highlighted since Friday—the access to all of Greenland, the lack of U.S. payments, even what the president arrestingly called the pact’s “Infinite Life”—were in fact already provided for by the 1951 agreement. Though there are a few new additions.
U.S. officials say that the deal will explicitly block non-NATO nations from basing forces in Greenland, for example. (Even if it seems doubtful in the extreme Copenhagen would ever have allowed this.)
The new agreement is also supposed to give the U.S. government some degree of control over adversaries’ ability to invest in Greenland, although the specifics are unclear (and Denmark, for what it’s worth, has historically blocked Chinese deals when we’ve pushed). And it’s been reported that this deal will provide the U.S. military with more latitude to construct military facilities.
But the most salutary thing for U.S. interests is not the grab bag of minor concessions noted above, most of which any president could have had for the asking. It is, rather, the way in which the deal was brought off.
For a year and a half, the Trump administration has employed cajolery, bluster, and bullying to obtain an outcome Europe has always held to be flatly unacceptable. Trump has sought to buy Greenland; he has tried to use tariffs to dislodge it from Denmark; he has suggested the United States may take the island by force.
And behind the half-baked security rationales, the true motive has always been clear: to close America’s biggest real estate deal since the Mexican cession, at Europe’s expense.
The effect has been to unnerve Europe, and to force its leaders to question their most deeply held assumptions about American policy and power. More than anything else in the last few years, it has persuaded the Europeans that the United States has changed. That the old guarantor of security, which could be depended upon to commit its blood and treasure to defending the other side of the Atlantic—and even defer to its wards on the planning and conduct of that defense—was no more.
As one European diplomat told the Financial Times at the height of tensions in January, “We know who our allies no longer are. It’s just we are still hoping we are wrong and the problem will go away. We know what needs to be done, we just need to bloody do it.”
If one thinks that the world’s wealthiest continent must provide for its own defense, this is immensely positive. The U.S. can and should leave Europe on its own terms, as I have previously argued in these pages. But in view of the pervasiveness of Atlanticism in American foreign policy circles, the task will be made considerably easier if the ostensible beneficiaries—that is, the Europeans themselves—cease to see American security commitments as dependable or even desirable.
We are a way off from that yet. And of course, one could argue that by abandoning the demand for annexation and resolving the crisis, Trump has also ended these dissensions. (Not to mention the deal’s other downsides, like the fact that Greenland—and therefore Europe—is now likely to play a central role in building out the wasteful, unnecessary, and probably unworkable Golden Dome system.)
But some of the damage will endure. The fractures created by an American president threatening economic and even military devastation in order to seize European territory cannot be entirely papered over.
Even if the push was initially attributable to Trump’s personal proclivities, the fact that the entire U.S. policy apparatus (including the Pentagon) was willing to sustain such an adversarial campaign against a treaty ally will resonate in Old World capitals for years to come. So viewed in its wider aspect, as the dénouement of a drama that has made a bad status quo less tenable, the Greenland deal is indeed a win for America First.
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1. Trump didn't get anything the U.S. didn't already have.
2. The deal's main achievement is that Trump's threats and bullying showed Europe that they can no longer trust the U.S. as a friend or ally, so they will spend more on their own defense.
The win was that no other country, like Russia or China can’t do anything on that continent without America’s permission ,ever!
Europe is a suicidal insane asylum, rapidly becoming an Islamic suicidal insane asylum.
Nothing was lost, so it could be termed a “win”.
Declare victory and go home.
The heads of liberals everywhere have been exploding regularly.
And who the Hell in Luke Nicastro? Just another Debbie Downer?
“Though there are a few new additions”
“The win was that no other country, like Russia or China can’t do anything on that continent without America’s permission ,ever!”
Oh, there’s more. It also guarentees the protection ofr the space force base there with the PAVEPAWS unit, and the sub base there from being evicted. (Pituffik Space Base and is home to the world’s northernmost deep-water seaport)
Nothing like a little security.
wy69
And then, he contradicts that with: “to close America’s biggest real estate deal since the Mexican cession, at Europe’s expense.”
I have a problem with this line:
“And behind the half-baked security rationales, the true motive has always been clear: to close America’s biggest real estate deal since the Mexican cession, at Europe’s expense.”
I NEVER thought Trump was serious about acquiring Greenland’s real estate as an American possession. At best, it was an aspirational goal, a ‘wouldn’t this be nice’ thing. The important thing was using it to manipulate the EU to do what he wanted.
If this author seriously thought that, I wonder about his depth of understanding of Trump’s manipulations.
“The win was that no other country, like Russia or China can’t do anything on that continent without America’s permission ,ever!”
Apparently, what kicked this off was a loan to Sri Lanka. The Hambantota Port, which the UN warned Sri Lanka would not be profitable, was built using a Chinese loan. The way these loans work is, China bribes officials to sign the loan. When the country is unable to pay, China seizes the assets. So now China has a port in the Indian ocean. The officials who signed the loan have moved to mansions in the Bahamas.
The same Chinese development bank was offering to build a huge airport in Greenland. The airport would never have been profitable. The US nudged Denmark and made them put a stop to it. It’s reasonable that sufficient bribes to get it approved had already been paid by China. Default on this loan would have given China a military base in Greenland.
The Chinese are doing this all over the world.
Not so...First of all...It’s permanent...and exclusive...and they don’t need permission for improvements.
It was a win - we got what mattered.
The Chinese, Russians, North Koreans, etc etc etc are NOT going to be building bases in our hemisphere. People who make deals NEVER expect to get all they’re asking for in the first offer. You know that, right?
So viewed in its wider aspect, as the dénouement of a drama that has made a bad status quo less tenable, the Greenland deal is indeed a win for America First.
The author must have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
This is a huge win, almost certainly what President Trump was aiming for from the beginning.
The author needs to read The Art of the Deal. You always ask for the Maximum, be willing to settle for good, and usually get somewhere between “good” and “maximum”. This is a great deal for the USA, and cost us nothing. The blathering about how Europe no longer “trusts” us is nonsense.
What good is “trust” when it amounts to the trust they can take advantage of the the USA?
Look at a map...The USA should have it and Canada should fall down on their knees...
Everything is up - except oil.
What threats and bullying?? All he did was raise awareness. Look at a map..
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