The Greenland Fiasco Stumbles to an End

Jesper Møller Sørensen, the Danish ambassador to Washington, projected an air of calm.

He was serving hors d’oeuvres, including reindeer sausage and smoked salmon, at his residence, where American, Danish, and Greenlandic guests had gathered for a Wednesday event billed as “A Taste of the Arctic.” On the terrace, he told me that months-long discussions about the future of Greenland were heading in a good direction.

But, he warned, the outcome would depend on whether one person could be swayed.

It was obvious that he was talking about President Trump, who has long coveted Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.

Trump has claimed that the United States needs the island for national security, at times declining to rule out using force to acquire it.

When his rhetoric became more threatening earlier this year, the Danish armed forces flew emergency blood supplies and explosives to the island to prepare for a potential U.S. attack.

The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, warned that a U.S. invasion would mean that “everything ends” for NATO—something of an understatement for a scenario in which one founding member of the alliance attacks another. [ Read: Denmark’s army chief says he’s ready to defend Greenland ] At the World Economic Forum in Davos, in January, Trump stepped back from the brink, proclaiming the “framework of a future deal.” In the subsequent months, he returned to the topic in fits of pique, at one point arguing that Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not Denmark.” Meanwhile, representatives from the United States, Denmark, and Greenland met to consider ways to bolster U.S. security interests on the island and fend off hostile powers in the Arctic region, namely Russia and China.

Now the promised “future deal” appears to be here.

It builds on a Cold War agreement between the U.S. and Denmark and includes no transfer of territory to the United States.

Instead, it envisions the kind of expanded U.S.-military access and multilateral cooperation that leaders from Denmark and Greenland said was available all along, and doesn’t threaten to blow up the security architecture that the U.S. has helped maintain for nearly 80 years.

Earlier tonight, Trump wrote on social media that Washington “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.” He also said that U.S. adversaries will be barred from having bases on Greenland or making sensitive investments in the island, which is rich in minerals and other raw materials.

A Cold War–era agreement signed by Denmark and the United States already gave Washington broad latitude to conduct military operations in the territory, and the U.S.