U.S. President Donald Trump says a NATO-linked “framework” would give the United States “total and permanent” access to Greenland, as Denmark and Greenland insist the island’s sovereignty is not for negotiation.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said: “Sovereignty is a red line.”
Nielsen added he did not know what, if anything, had been agreed about Greenland itself, telling reporters: “I don’t know what there is in the agreement, or the deal, about my country.”
He said Greenland could discuss “a lot of things” and negotiate a “better partnership.”
The White House Press Office told SIN: “President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region.”
The White House Press Office added: “The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”
Trump has said he would not take Greenland “by force,” according to reporting on his Davos remarks.
He also said the United States needs “the ability to do exactly what we want to do.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Greenland’s constitutional status was not part of his conversation with Trump.
“That issue did not come up,” Rutte said.
Rutte said Trump was focused on how allies can protect the Arctic region as “the Chinese and the Russians are more and more active.”
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Copenhagen would not publicise dates for future meetings because “what is needed now is to take the drama out of this.”
“We need a calm process,” Rasmussen said.
Danish and U.S. diplomats met in Washington on 22 January and established a plan for how to proceed, Reuters said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen travelled to Nuuk on 23 January and was greeted at the airport by Nielsen.
Frederiksen said she was in Greenland “to show our strong support for Greenland’s people,” Reuters reported.
She said Greenland is “not for sale,” and that sovereignty is “not up for discussion.”
A person familiar with the Davos discussions cautioned that “anything being reported on specific details is speculative,” calling the arrangement “a frame on which to build.”
Reuters said the reported next step is talks involving the United States, Denmark and Greenland on updating a 1951 agreement governing U.S. military access and presence.
The Davos framework as described by Trump was reported as including restrictions on Chinese and Russian investments in Greenland, while key details remained unclear.
The legal basis for the U.S. defence presence is the 1951 “Defense of Greenland” agreement between the United States and Denmark.
The agreement sets out how U.S. defence areas and facilities can be established and operated in Greenland for agreed defence purposes.
Marc Jacobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College said the United States could already expand its presence under the current agreement.
The largest U.S. installation in Greenland is Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, formerly Thule Air Base.
A U.S. Space Force page says crews at Pituffik operate the Upgraded Early Warning Radar, “a phased-array radar that detects and reports attack assessments” of ballistic missile threats in support of strategic missile warning and missile defence.
Associated Press said Trump has linked Greenland’s location to his proposed “Golden Dome” missile-defence concept.
AP described Pituffik as a key early-warning radar facility used to detect and track missile threats.
Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based analyst who specialises in Russia’s nuclear arsenal, told AP the location “gives the United States more time to think about what to do.”
Etienne Marcuz, a French nuclear defence specialist, told AP Trump’s claim that Greenland must be acquired for Golden Dome was “false for several reasons.” AP reported that there is “no meaningful way” to do large-scale work in Greenland without icebreakers.
Sophie Arts of the German Marshall Fund told AP two of the U.S.’s three icebreakers are “basically past their life cycle already.”
“Cooperation is what makes this possible,” Arts told AP, adding that the U.S. “doesn’t really have a pathway to do this on its own at this time.”
Anthony Heron, an Arctic researcher who responded to SIN, said: “Greenland isn’t an empty piece of land that someone can buy.”
“You can’t buy sovereignty over people; they have the right to choose for themselves,” he said.
Denmark’s English translation of the 2009 Act on Greenland Self-Government describes the arrangement as recognising that “the people of Greenland is a people pursuant to international law with the right of self-determination.”
The preamble also describes the self-government model as based on “an agreement between Naalakkersuisut and the Danish Government as equal partners.”
Christian Keldsen of Grønlands Erhverv told SIN: “Neither business community nor investors like uncertainty.”
Keldsen said discussion of “taking-over and annexation does not necessarily promote more business.”
“We are hearing rumours of some cancellations within tourism with reference to the situation,” he said.
“We are very concerned about Greenland´s reputation,” he added.
Statistics Greenland says: “The fishing industry provides over 90 per cent of Greenland´s export.”
Statistics Greenland also says Greenland is “very dependent on the fishing sector and the international buyer prices.”
Statistics Greenland’s “Greenland in Figures 2025” lists Denmark’s 2023 block grant to Greenland at 4,141.5 million Danish kroner (preliminary figures).
Visit Greenland’s Tourism Satellite Account for 2024 estimates total internal tourism consumption at 2,979 million Danish kroner, with 58% attributed to inbound tourism.
The same account estimates tourism direct GDP at 4.9% of total GDP and average tourism-supported employment of 1,824 people per month in 2024.
Anthony told SIN that “continued talk about ‘buying’ or ‘taking’ Greenland is unlikely to lead to war, but it absolutely can, and has, done damage.”
He pointed to Camp Century as part of the U.S. legacy in Greenland, describing it as “overlooked.”
NASA’s Earth Observatory has reported that the abandoned Cold War-era Camp Century site contains an estimated 200,000 litres of diesel fuel and 24,000,000 litres of wastewater. NASA said the site also contains an unknown quantity of low-level radioactive waste and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
