“I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns. There will be NO COST to the United States! At my direction, we worked with representatives of Denmark and Greenland to guarantee that the United States will 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… We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many.”
That was President Donald Trump on Sept. 18 on Truth Social announcing an historic agreement with Greenland and Denmark to establish a permanent U.S. military presence in Greenland, to build the Golden Dome missile defense shield and to otherwise forbid any other countries from ever establishing based in Greenland. It expands upon a 1951 agreement between the U.S. and Denmark.
Trump explained, “Additionally, from now on, no U.S. adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval. For over 100 years, Presidents have known the strategic importance of Greenland, but NONE of them were able to do anything about it. I am proud to be the President that permanently and conclusively addressed this very important situation. This is an ‘Infinite Life’ Agreement, there is no end!”
Affirming the agreement, to be signed at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22, were Prime Minister of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen in two statements issued on Sept. 18.
Nielsen stated: ”It is encouraging that we are about to make an agreement that will ensure and strengthen the security of Greenland, the Kingdom of Denmark, the United States, and the Western Alliance. The agreement recognizes Greenland’s interests and our place in the international cooperation. It is to the benefit of us all.”
And Frederiksen stated: “I am glad that we are about to make a great agreement for Greenland, the Kingdom of Denmark, and the United States. An agreement which strengthens our common security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic Area and therefore is great for NATO and Europe as well. And an agreement which at the same time recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination.”
The agreement itself makes all the sense in the world to all parties involved. Greenland is the closest country to the strategically all-important North Pole, the shortest route for Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach the United States in the event of a nuclear war. Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from its Arctic Sea locations pass largely over Greenland, Canada and Alaska depending on the target. Now, the U.S. missile defense system will be completely integrated into Greenland.
The missile defense system will initially cost $24 billion, authorized in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and also in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. According to the Congressional Research Service, it is “an integrated air and missile defense system… to combine a range of capabilities to create a ‘system of systems’ to protect the United States from ‘aerial attacks from any foe,’” quoting the President’s January 2025 executive order and a May 2025 statement from War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The agreement will cap off nearly two years of diplomacy that began before President Trump was sworn into his second term in 2025. At a Palm Beach, Fla. press conference on Jan. 7, 2025, Trump put acquiring Greenland itself on the table to counter China and Russia’s joint naval exercises and other activities in the region that Trump says endanger U.S. national security, stating, “We need Greenland for national security purposes I’ve been told that for a long time long… People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security. That’s for the free world… You don’t even need binoculars, you look outside, you have China ships all over the place, you have Russian ships all over the place. We’re not letting that happen.”
Naturally, Trump was right. On Dec. 5, 2024, then-U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and Global Resilience Iris Ferguson under former President Joe Biden had already warned that the level of cooperation between China and Russia in the area was “unprecedented”: “The increasing levels of collaboration between Russia and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and the unprecedented style of collaboration, especially in the military domain, give us again pause.”
At the press conference, Trump had said all options were on the table, stating, “I can’t assure you. You’re talking about Panama and Greenland, no, I can’t assure you on either of those two but… I can say this we need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military. I’m not going to commit to that now… It might be that you’ll have to do something.”
The international freak out would continue all throughout 2025, culminating by January 2026 in European nations including Germany and France have sent additional troops to Greenland in a show of force to counter President Trump’s push into Greenland.
But by Jan. 21, 2026, it was all resolved in an agreement brokered in part by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, with President Trump posting on Truth Social on Jan. 21, “Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region. This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations… Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland.”
As a result, the President wrote, he would not be following through with planned additional 10 percent tariffs on Denmark, Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Finland and Germany: “Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”
This is the framework that is now culminating in the Sept. 22 agreement. In January, the New York Times reported: “The announcement followed a NATO meeting on Wednesday where top military officers from the alliance’s member states discussed a compromise in which Denmark would give the United States sovereignty over small pockets of Greenlandic land where the United States could build military bases, according to three senior officials familiar with the discussion. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter, and they said the idea was one Mr. [Mark] Rutte [NATO Secretary General] had been pursuing… NATO officials have discussed expanding the 1951 pact with a new agreement that would effectively create pockets of American soil in the territory.”
In January, it came with an important caveat: “The officials cautioned that many details have yet to be finalized.” But now those details have been finalized.
The outcome of course was rather predictable. In May 2019, President Trump threatened 5 percent tariffs on Mexico and then used that to get Mexican troops on the border and Remain in Mexico.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan put upgraded nuclear missiles into Europe, meeting similar consternation overseas and at home only to give it all back in negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty where the missiles Reagan put in place were taken off the table to denuclearize the continent.
Some critics have suggested that President Trump could have gotten this deal without the threat of taking Greenland as a territory. But, this is just how he rolls, his art of the deal.
In the process, the American people were educated about the need for missile defense, with graphics shown all over news outlets of Russia’s ICBMs that would mostly come over Greenland to hit the U.S.
In the process, President Trump has dusted off the Monroe Doctrine, first articulated by President James Monroe in 1823 in his State of the Union Address: “We… declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it… we could not view any interposition… by any European powers in any other light than as a manifestation of any unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”
The doctrine was later expanded by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, the so-called Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, to include the possibility of the use of military force by the U.S. to protect the Americas, telling Congress: “[I]n the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however, reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power… We would interfere with them only as a last resort and then only if it became evident that their inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.” Roosevelt immediately made good on the threat by intervening in the Dominican Republic in 1905, as he had already in Panama in 1903 by establishing a protectorate there, or predating Roosevelt’s, tenure, the protectorate over Cuba starting in 1898.
Later, U.S. actions to avert the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 as the Soviet Union parked nuclear missiles there or in Nicaragua in 1981 and Grenada in 1983 were further modern examples of various assertions of the Monroe Doctrine and against world powers who were threatening security in the Americas.
Now, with China and Russia who were attempting to push into the Arctic Sea, the Americas once again have responded, with the permanent U.S.-Greenland-Denmark agreement that will now endure through future administrations. Now, there will be no question about U.S. military protection of Greenland and around the Arctic. It is bigger than even President Trump himself — although it may very well be that he was the only one who get this done. Thank you, Mr. President!
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
