US-Denmark-Greenland Arctic security pact a 'win for all three', analyst says

President Donald Trump signed an agreement with Denmark and Greenland on Tuesday aimed at strengthening Arctic and North Atlantic security, clearing the way for a larger US military presence on the vast island while leaving it under Danish control.

The signing, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, follows Trump's announcement days earlier of a deal to expand the American military footprint in Greenland without changing its sovereignty. The move eases friction over his repeated suggestions that the United States should take over the semiautonomous territory.

Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College and head of research at the Center for Arctic Security Studies, described the outcome as beneficial to every side. For Trump, he said, the agreement offers a chance to claim a diplomatic victory at a time when his administration is contending with a trade dispute with Canada and an unpopular war in Iran. Closing the Greenland question, Jacobsen added, lets the president present himself as an effective negotiator to Republican-friendly media and his political circle.

Jacobsen said the text is not radically different from the existing 1951 defence agreement, which was updated in 2004, but he identified three concrete additions. The most significant, he said, is greater clarity on which countries are welcome in Greenland and which are not. NATO member states, NATO partners and EU members are welcome, while others are effectively barred from military presence or investment. That exclusion, he noted, is aimed chiefly at Russia and China.

While calling the agreement an important achievement, Jacobsen cautioned that it may not fully repair relations strained by nearly two years of pressure from Washington. Trust between the parties is far lower than it was, he said, describing a sense of post-traumatic stress in Denmark and Greenland and stressing that the relationship will need to be rebuilt.

He also said the episode, unwelcome as it was for Greenland, has raised the island's international profile. Other states are now more inclined to deal directly with Nuuk rather than Copenhagen, he noted, pointing to the Greenlandic premier's prominent performance at a press meeting a day earlier. Full independence may not arrive in the next few years, Jacobsen said, but Greenland can expand its self-determination in the meantime and present itself as a more autonomous foreign policy actor.

Trump has pursued the idea of acquiring Greenland since 2019. During his second term he threatened to seize the territory from Denmark, a NATO ally, arguing that the United States needed to take it to prevent Russia or China from doing so.