Donald Trump has announced a deal granting the US “permanent” security rights over Greenland, after months of battling with Denmark and its European allies over control of the Arctic island.
It comes just six weeks before the midterm elections, in which polling suggests Republicans will suffer significant losses.
News of the deal may simultaneously elicit a European sigh of relief and raise the US President’s hopes of clawing back his plummeting popularity rating – but will it be enough to save transatlantic relations, or the Republicans’ midterm fate?
Why did Trump want a Greenland deal?
Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish island, is rich in natural resources and strategically useful as a foothold in the Arctic. For decades, it has been used to detect threats in the High North, with sensors designed to warn of ballistic missiles that the US feared could come over the Arctic from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
In January, Trump threatened to seize the island – and refused for a time to rule out using force. He argued that Greenland was “vital” for his “Golden Dome” air defence plans, which he said would be capable of intercepting missiles launched from across the world or even from space.
The move risked imploding the Nato military alliance of which both the US and Denmark are party; designed to protect all members from attack, it faced an unprecedented threat from within. One former Pentagon official told The i Paper at the time that the alliance would never recover from such public and serious infighting, which undermined the core concept of mutual defence.
On Friday evening, Trump heralded a victory with his claim that a new deal between Denmark and Washington would give the White House “permanent control over security and all other needs” in Greenland.
In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump said the deal “completely addressed” all of his concerns and came at “no cost” to the US. He added that the US would “forever” have the “complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America.”
The Trump administration painted the development as an American triumph, with the President himself describing it as a “dream come true” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it a “huge win for the United States”.
A Nato spokesperson said the military alliance welcomed the deal, which would “help advance security, stability and cooperation in this vital region”.
However, Ed Arnold, a senior associate fellow and Arctic expert at defence think-tank RUSI, said the deal had achieved very little – at great cost.
US Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance with Col. Susan Meyers (L), commander of the US military’s Pituffik Space Base (Photo: Jim Watson/Getty)Does this deal change much?
The US already had wide-ranging security access in Greenland, together with a political position which could have easily granted them more; a 1951 defence agreement between Denmark and the US gives the American military the ability to build new bases, station troops there, and control the movement of ships and planes.
It also runs Pituffik Space Base on Greenland’s north-west coast, used for detecting threats from the Arctic, and Thule Site J, a US Space Force radar station for missile warning and spacecraft tracking.
Trump said the new deal will deny America’s adversaries access to Greenland, but Arnold argued this was already implicit; the Danes and the Greenlanders would not have given China preferential access to raw materials anyway, and the US could have exerted diplomatic pressure to suspend it had they ever moved to do so.
Russia is also highly unlikely to attack Greenland, Arnold said: “They couldn’t even take Snake Island, which is on the smaller side of islands in the world. It’s not a military target.”
He continued: “From what’s been released thus far, it’s essentially what the US already had. The disastrous thing about it is just how much damage it’s done to the [Nato] alliance… for basically no gain.”
The deal will likely lead to new American military installations and more US soldiers stationed in Greenland, which is “positive from a US security perspective,” said Arnold.
But overall, Trump is “basically announcing something that was already either explicitly able to be done through the US, or the US could have got their own way through active diplomacy rather than threatening diplomacy,” he added.
The US has argued that Greenland is integral to its plans to build a ‘Golden Dome’ of air defence (Photo: Florent Vergnes/AFP)Rachel Ellehuus, who worked in the Pentagon on European security and later in the US delegation to Nato, said Friday’s deal was “a good result for the Kingdom of Denmark”, with no transfer of sovereignty and Greenland remaining Danish.
However, the damage to Nato is already done, she said, and this deal will do little to rectify that.
“Trust in the US is broken and allies remain wary,” said Ellehuus, who is now RUSI’s director-general.
Is this just a panic-induced move before the midterms?
The deal may also be an attempt to bolster the wider Republican Party, given it comes less than two months before the midterm elections, which will determine the future makeup of the US Government.
At present, Republicans could lose control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, with Trump facing his joint-lowest popularity rating on record as his war with Iran spikes the cost of living for American voters.
Despite promises and diplomatic efforts, Trump has so far failed to resolve the wars in Iran or Ukraine – the latter of which he repeatedly pledged to conclude on his first day in office.
With 71 per cent of voters telling Fox News they don’t think the President has a plan to end hostilities with Tehran, a deal resolving another international spat will undoubtedly be seen as a helpful news story for the White House – from which Trump has just banned media outlets CNN, Politico and MS Now for “reporting fake news”.
Donald Trump has urged his followers to imagine he was running during the Midterm elections (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty)On the subject of the Greenland deal, Melanie Garson, a professor of international security at University College London, said that “timing is always significant in these agreements”.
The focus is on Trump “being able to demonstrate delivery on ambitions and promises, and increasing US reputation on the global stage but at no cost to the American people,” she said.
“In the framing of President Trump, this is a deal that he promised would be made, and a deal that he’s achieved for the American people, going into the midterms.”
But with the cost of living repeatedly polling as the most important topic to voters, and a January poll finding that most Americans did not even want the US to seize Greenland, the security deal seems unlikely to significantly turn the tide.
“Most Americans don’t care about Greenland,” said Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at the University of Essex. “If the economy was going better, it could have been something that resonated with voters, but Americans are focused on gas and grocery prices and the war in Iran – not Greenland.”
The Greenland deal may not substantially bolster American security, restore trust among US allies or turn Republican election fortunes around, then – but it will buy the White House some positive headlines at home and ease fears of an American invasion abroad.
“At least the agreement takes a major concern off the [international] agenda,” Ellehuus said. “For now.”
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