Published
The United States, Denmark and Greenland signed their Arctic security agreement in New York on Tuesday, four days after Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk announced they had reached it. The text does not take effect on the signatures. By the terms the Danish prime minister’s office published, it enters into force subject to the necessary national parliamentary procedures, which means the agreement now goes to legislatures in Nuuk and Copenhagen that were not in the room.
President Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen signed at the United Nations General Assembly. Nielsen put Greenland’s reading of it in one line. “The agreement recognizes Greenland’s interests and our place in the international cooperation,” he said.
Frederiksen has described the agreement as one that “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination,” and she has framed the security gain as a NATO gain, calling it an agreement that strengthens common security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic.
Trump described what the United States gets. “No US adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland any more, or make sensitive investments there without our express written approval,” he said. The agreement expands the American footprint beyond Pituffik Space Base, the installation the United States has held since the Cold War, to Narsarsuaq, a former airbase in the south, and to Mestersvig on the east coast, a site Danish forces use now.
What the agreement does not do is change Greenland’s status, and both governments in the Kingdom have been careful to say so. Greenland has run its own affairs under the Act on Greenland Self-Government since 2009, the law that also provides that a decision on independence belongs to the people of Greenland, taken by Inatsisartut and confirmed by a referendum there.
The pressure that produced the deal ran for most of a year. After returning to office the President called on Denmark to sell Greenland, and would not rule out taking it by force. Denmark and Greenland refused every version of the offer, and Greenlandic politicians of every party said the island was not for sale.
Nielsen leads a coalition government formed after Greenland’s March 2025 election. Inatsisartut has 31 seats. The agreement it will be asked to approve was negotiated by the three capitals and announced before Greenlandic members saw the final text.
Three leaders signed in New York on Tuesday. The people who will decide whether the agreement binds Greenland were not among them.
Photo: Inatsisartut, Greenland’s parliament, in Nuuk. Kenny McFly, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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