Trump’s Greenland Deal Is a Diplomatic and Strategic Mic Drop

Not for the first time, President Donald Trump pulled off an accord his critics and doubters insisted was beyond his capabilities. On Sept. 22, the official text of the trilateral Greenland deal was released. And it’s bigger and better than the president’s political opponents would want to admit.

The agreement, signed by the United States, Greenland, and the Kingdom of Denmark, doesn’t make the Arctic island America’s 51st state or a US territory. It does, however, achieve President Trump's goals of giving America greater access, enhancing the strategic security of the United States, and, perhaps of greatest importance, preventing America’s adversaries from establishing their own footholds on the autonomous island.

Greenland Deal Creates American Outpost

The main points of the Greenland deal give the US the ability “to modernize and expand its activities in Pituffik Space Base” as well as to establish additional military facilities – described as “defense areas” – at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig further north on the east coast. Narsarsuaq is also the location of a former international airport that now serves as a heliport.

Additionally, the US has the option to set up more “defense areas” in consultation with the island’s autonomous governing body and the Kingdom of Denmark. Not only that, but “unmanned military installations” beyond the defense areas can also be established after a review of US requests by Denmark and Greenland.

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Essentially, the arrangement provides America with a very significant and expansive strategic outpost close enough to the US mainland to enhance defenses, but also within striking distance of both the Arctic and Europe, should the situation call for it.

Speaking of defense, the agreement integrates the island into President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system.

It also promises that, to the extent possible, Greenlandic industry will be given priority in terms of contracts to modernize, overhaul, or expand America’s military presence on the island.

The most consequential part of the agreement is this clause, a landmark not only for the US, but for Greenland and NATO:

“No state that is not a member of NATO shall be allowed to establish its own manned or unmanned military installations in Greenland nor shall they be allowed a persistent presence of military forces in Greenland, unless otherwise agreed by the Parties.”

Greenland Forever

That one section gives President Trump what he was trying to achieve all along: securing the island against any future incursion by any foreign non-NATO country. It’s all about the art of the deal – and Trump literally wrote the book on that. Shoot for much more than you need or want and eventually “settle” for much less, which still is, in fact, what you wanted.

The Greenland accord is, essentially, a permanent agreement. Despite all the doubt, President Trump has secured the Arctic territory as a NATO stronghold – but, in reality, a United States stronghold – against all future attempted incursions by America’s and NATO’s enemies.

This agreement demonstrates once again that, for all the anti-Trump posturing in Europe, the elected leaders on that continent understand that their security ultimately rests in the hands of America’s military might. And because, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the NATO alliance finds itself on the brink of war with Russia, the Greenland deal was perhaps not only inevitable, but vital.