If the U.S. is indeed on its way to securing a deal with Denmark and Greenland akin to the one that the president is now describing, that is good news, even if getting to this point has been far more painful than it needed to be. Donald Trump maintains that the deal will give the United States “permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland,” and that no U.S. adversary could have a base or military presence there without Washington’s written approval. If so, great.
To be clear, Trump was right about one big thing: that Greenland merited much more attention than it had been getting. The Arctic may not have warmed up by as much and as quickly as Al Gore and others claimed it would, but it has done so by enough to render it much more accessible than before. As a result, it is becoming a zone of geopolitical competition for its resources and, more simply, because of location, location, location.
For obvious geographical reasons, that increases the already-considerable importance of Greenland to this country. The island is a potential back door through U.S. defenses and a key North Atlantic vantage point. Moreover, in an era of supply-chain anxiety, it has potentially valuable mineral resources, including rare earths.
During the Second World War, the U.S. assumed de facto control of Greenland, which was a colony of Denmark, a country then occupied by Germany. After the German defeat, the Truman administration floated the idea of a $100 million purchase. Denmark was not interested but, recognizing Washington’s legitimate interest in Greenland and all too aware of the broader Soviet threat, entered into a comprehensive defense agreement with the U.S. in 1951.
Legally, Greenland is no longer a colony. It is a part of Denmark, but with a high degree of autonomy. In response to the changing relationship between the two, the defense agreement was amended in 2004 in ways that provided for a greater degree of consultation with Greenland’s government and effectively restricted the U.S. “zone” to the one remaining American base (down from a peak of perhaps 17) at Thule, now known as Pituffik. The U.S. has a relatively small number of personnel at the facility but maintains critical early-warning installations designed to detect a missile attack, along with satellite guidance and control systems (for which locations in the far north are indispensable) and a large airfield. Given the limited resources Denmark has at its disposal to defend Greenland, an agreement to upgrade the U.S. presence needed doing.
Asking politely to upgrade the existing agreement might well have delivered just that — and done so without creating all the geopolitical self-harm. Unfortunately, Trump went about defending the U.S. strategic interest in a different way, and that was the wrong way. The core of the problem has been that, despite his own nationalist instincts, the president is oblivious when it comes to the national sensitivities of others. Originally, he had imagined that Greenland could simply be bought: essentially, it would be “a large real estate deal.” This was not, unsurprisingly, how the Danes and Greenlanders saw it. The president’s adding the threat of stick (tariffs and hints of worse) to the promise of carrot caused a major rift within NATO and did damage to our reputation as a reliable ally.
Full details of the revised arrangement have yet to be disclosed. Denmark is talking about a greater role for NATO as a whole, something that is already underway and was overdue. From the American point of view, this ought to be in line with our insistence on greater burden-sharing within the alliance. To be sure, Greenland was already under NATO’s shield, but emphasizing the involvement of the broader alliance may help seal the deal in the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments, where the agreement will have to be ratified and where suspicion of American intentions has soared. Stressing the fact that Danish and Greenlandic sovereignty will be left intact will help. There will be no grant of exclusive mining concessions to the U.S., but, if some reports are accurate, there will be a provision that only NATO and EU members will be allowed to make “sensitive investments” in Greenland. If so, that’s also to the good.
One key question that appears to be unresolved is the durability of any deal. The president is saying that it will be permanent, which would be best for U.S. interests. But would the agreement really be “forever” if Greenland became fully independent, something that, judging by the polls, most Greenlanders would like to see, if only at the right time?
For now, however, it seems that the U.S. is on track to better secure its position in Greenland, although there’s no deal until there’s a ratified deal. If and when an agreement is concluded, the best way to maximize its benefits to the U.S. will be to repair the diplomatic damage that this episode has caused by rebuilding a deeper relationship with Denmark and Greenland.