Trump signs Greenland security deal expanding US military footprint

US President Donald Trump signed a new Greenland security agreement on Tuesday alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

According to the text published by the Danish Foreign Ministry, the agreement permits the United States to expand its military presence on Greenland by modernising and enlarging the existing Pituffik Space Base and by establishing new defence areas at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig. It also grants the US free access and movement between defence areas across the island, including territorial waters, by land, air and sea, and allows American aircraft to fly over and land anywhere on the territory.

Trump had previously said the arrangement would give Washington "permanent control" over the island's security. In a Truth Social post on Friday, he wrote that no US adversary would be able to establish a base, military presence or sensitive investments in Greenland without express American approval.

Both Frederiksen and Nielsen welcomed the signed deal, which falls short of Trump's earlier ambition to acquire the territory outright — a move he had described as essential to US national security. Frederiksen said Friday the agreement would uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark and the Greenlandic people's right to self-determination, while Nielsen said it would strengthen the island's security.

At the height of the Cold War, the US maintained 17 military facilities and more than 10,000 troops on Greenland. Today it operates a single base there, the Pituffik Space Base, the Pentagon's northernmost installation, which supports missile warning, missile defence and space surveillance operations for the US Space Force.