Trump’s Greenland Deal Is a Pyrrhic Victory at Best

Trump's Greenland Deal Is the End of a Pointless Conflict

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Analysis: Trump’s Greenland Deal Is a Pyrrhic Victory at Best

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Analysis

Trump’s Greenland Deal Is a Pyrrhic Victory at Best

Washington can still repair some of the damage done.

By **Imran Bayoumi**, a deputy director and resident fellow with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

!Kjeldsen, a man bundled in a winter coat, scarf, and hat, holds an American flag on a short wooden staff in one arm and has a longer staff slung over his shoulders, with other flags fluttering from it. Behind him is a small building sided with red boards, and snow is visible piled up against it.

*Kjeldsen, a man bundled in a winter coat, scarf, and hat, holds an American flag on a short wooden staff in one arm and has a longer staff slung over his shoulders, with other flags fluttering from it. Behind him is a small building sided with red boards, and snow is visible piled up against it.*

Jens Kjeldsen, 70—who holds a staff adorned with flags, including those of the United States and the three territories of the Kingdom of Denmark—departs after his daily morning vigil in front of the U.S. Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, on Jan. 22. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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September 21, 2026, 3:40 PM

The announcement of a deal regarding the future of Greenland hopefully ends a period of tension between the United States, Denmark, Greenland, and other European allies. U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed a triumphant deal, but the whole thing has been an exercise in pointlessness. Though more details, including the full text of the agreement, need to be released, much of what the purported deal accomplishes was either already the case or could have been achieved through diplomacy and without the threats of coercive action.

Trump has had a fascination with Greenland since his first term, when he explored options to buy the island. Since the start of his second term, Trump has appointed a special envoy to the island—and envoy who said that part of his role was to “make Greenland a part of the U.S.” He and other senior administration officials have made repeated statements emphasizing their belief that Greenland needed to be part of the United States.

The announcement of a deal regarding the future of Greenland hopefully ends a period of tension between the United States, Denmark, Greenland, and other European allies. U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed a triumphant deal, but the whole thing has been an exercise in pointlessness. Though more details, including the full text of the agreement, need to be released, much of what the purported deal accomplishes was either already the case or could have been achieved through diplomacy and without the threats of coercive action.

Trump has had a fascination with Greenland since his first term, when he explored options to buy the island. Since the start of his second term, Trump has appointed a special envoy to the island—and envoy who said that part of his role was to “make Greenland a part of the U.S.” He and other senior administration officials have made repeated statements emphasizing their belief that Greenland needed to be part of the United States.

European nations issued their condemnation of Trump’s threats of territorial annexation and worked to demonstrate their commitment to the defense of Greenland, and some even surged troops to the island. Now, both sides are cautiously optimistic about the new agreement, though its outcomes do not seem fundamentally different than what could have already been accomplished under the existing 1951 Defense of Greenland Treaty.

Crucially, the new deal affirms the sovereignty of both Denmark and Greenland, marking a blow to Trump’s initial ambitions to annex the territory. But the sovereignty of Greenland was never in question before. Greenlanders had made clear their desire for future independence from Denmark in the past but had largely ruled themselves since the 2009 Greenland Self-Government Act.

The new deal reportedly blocks non-NATO nations, including adversaries such as China or Russia, from building military bases on the island. Yet there was no indication that they were planning to do so already, or that Denmark would ever allow them to do so. The agreement would also ban nonallies from investing in the critical minerals and mining sectors—but existing policies have already blocked scattered attempts to do so.

Trump also said, though there was no immediate confirmation, that the new deal would remain in place even if Greenland were to eventually become an independent nation, allowing the United States to maintain an indefinite presence.

Though Trump announced that Washington would immediately begin scaling up its military footprint on the island, there is no reason that it could not have done so already. The United States previously maintained a sizable military presence in Greenland that has steadily shrunk since the end of the Cold War.

The agreed-upon deal, which is expected to be signed this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, marks an end to a disagreement that saw tensions sink to a low point in the trans-Atlantic relationship and had no reason to begin, save for Trump’s focus on territorial expansion.

As a sign of how bad things have become, a poll among Danes in May found that just 7 percent of them viewed the United States as an ally. That’s a shocking fall for the image of the Unit