Greenland's parliament approves US-Denmark security deal after year of Trump pressure

Greenland's parliament voted on Tuesday to approve a security agreement with Denmark and the United States, completing the island's side of a pact that expands the American military footprint in the Arctic after more than a year of pressure from President Donald Trump to bring the semi-autonomous Danish territory under closer US control.

Lawmakers in the Inatsisartut, meeting in the capital, Nuuk, backed the deal by a vote of 16 to 0, with seven abstentions, according to wire-service accounts of the session. No lawmaker voted against it. The agreement still needs approval from Denmark's national parliament, the Folketing, which is scheduled to take it up later this month in Copenhagen.

What the agreement allows

The pact was signed on 22 September by Mr. Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's head of government, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It takes the form of an amendment to the 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States, the document that has governed the US military presence on the island for three-quarters of a century, and it carries no expiration date.

Under its terms, the United States is permitted to modernize and expand Pituffik Space Base, its only existing installation in Greenland, and to establish additional "Defense Areas" at Narsarsuaq, in the south, and Mestersvig, on the east coast. Washington is also given a route to build further facilities, including unmanned ones, if the two governments cannot agree within 90 days, the dispute is escalated first to deputy ministers and then to ministers. The agreement further commits the United States to awarding contracts for construction and maintenance at the bases "to Greenlandic sources to the maximum extent possible," and it allows for the eventual stationing of elements of Mr. Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" missile-defense system on the island.

Separately, the pact bars any country outside NATO from establishing military installations in Greenland and restricts investment by non-NATO, non-EU states in what it calls "particularly sensitive sectors," including critical infrastructure and resource extraction. According to the Danish Foreign Ministry's own description of the deal, it does not alter sovereignty: the document explicitly reaffirms Denmark's sovereignty and territorial integrity and recognizes Greenlanders' right to self-determination, including the possibility that an independent Greenland would inherit the same obligations to the United States. The agreement will formally enter into force only once Denmark notifies Washington, by diplomatic note, that both the Folketing and the Inatsisartut have completed their approval procedures.

A year of pressure from Washington

Tuesday's vote caps a period of unusually direct American pressure on a NATO ally's territory. Mr. Trump spent much of his second term pressing for Greenland to come under US control, arguing the island was vital to national security given Arctic shipping routes and mineral deposits, and he repeatedly declined to rule out using military force to take it. He later stepped back from that threat, saying Greenlanders should be able to determine their own future, while continuing to press Danish and Greenlandic officials for a security arrangement. The two governments and Washington announced they had reached terms in September, after months of talks that at various points included a framework floated with NATO's secretary-general and a separate, broader Danish law permitting new US bases on the Danish mainland.

Because the US already enjoyed wide latitude to operate in Greenland under the 1951 agreement and its subsequent amendments, part of the debate in Nuuk centered on how much the new text actually changes in practice, rather than on whether to accept it. A preliminary debate on 12 October had already shown a broad, if not unanimous, majority in favor.

Divided reactions on the island

Greenland's roughly 57,000 residents are now watching to see what the deal means in practice. Mr. Nielsen told lawmakers that Greenlanders had stood united through months of geopolitical tension and that the territory's future remained in its own hands.

"Greenland is our country. Greenland will always be our country."

Not everyone in Nuuk and the surrounding towns shared his optimism. In Ilulissat, a fishing town on the island's west coast, several residents interviewed by wire reporters described a mix of relief and unease. One 28-year-old resident said she hoped the agreement meant the Trump administration had "got what they wanted" and that threats of annexation would now stop, though she added that some Greenlanders still feel powerless against the pressure from Washington. A 34-year-old chef said older residents had been frightened by talk of American soldiers arriving. Lars Erik Gabrielsen, the mayor of Avannaata Municipality in the island's north, argued the agreement serves Denmark's and NATO's interests more than it does ordinary Greenlanders, saying it brings no direct financial benefit to local communities.

In parliament, the opposition party Naleraq was the most pointed critic. Its leader, Pele Broberg, said during the October debate that Greenlanders had no guarantee of fixed payments for the rights granted to the United States and that many practical details of how the agreement would work remained unresolved, a concern echoed by some of the abstentions in Tuesday's vote.

Washington, for its part, cast the outcome in triumphant terms. A State Department statement called the agreement "another major victory for American national security," while the White House had no immediate comment on the Greenlandic vote itself.

What happens next

Attention now shifts to Copenhagen. Danish lawmakers are expected to debate the agreement over two sessions before a final vote later in November, with broad cross-party support already signaled in early reporting from Denmark. Once both chambers have acted, the formal exchange of diplomatic notes between the Kingdom of Denmark and Washington would bring the agreement into legal force, opening the way for construction to begin at the two new defense areas and for expansion work at Pituffik. Danish officials have said the agreement is meant to be read alongside, not instead of, Denmark's own buildup of Arctic surveillance and naval capability, which they describe as a continuing commitment regardless of the pact's outcome.

For Greenland, the vote does not resolve the broader argument that has run through the past year: whether closer security ties with Washington strengthen the island's hand as it considers its long-term relationship with Denmark, or whether they simply trade one form of external leverage for another. That question is likely to persist well after the Folketing casts its own vote.