Commentary: Trump declares victory in Greenland, but the deal exposes a deeper crisis of trust
The deal normalises a sphere-of-influence politics in which smaller states remain legally sovereign but face pressure to accept subordination, say academics.
A 3D-printed miniature model of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and the Greenland flag are seen in this illustration taken January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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SUNSHINE COAST, Australia: US President Donald Trump is already presenting the new security agreement between the United States, Denmark and Greenland as a personal triumph.
By his telling, Washington has secured permanent control over Greenland’s security and the power to prevent adversaries from establishing military bases or making sensitive investments there.
The Prime Minister’s Office of Denmark describes a different bargain: stronger Arctic security that preserves the Kingdom of Denmark’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as Greenlanders’ right to self-determination.
Yet the political bargain is already visible. Trump gets the spectacle of power – or as a US correspondent for Danish newspaper Politiken said, “He was allowed to take a victory lap on social media”. Denmark and Greenland keep nominal sovereignty. NATO avoids an immediate rupture. Each party can declare success.
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That is the optimistic reading. The more troubling one is that the agreement rewards months of coercion against an ally. It normalises a sphere-of-influence politics in which smaller states remain legally sovereign but face pressure to accept strategic subordination.
A DEAL EVERYONE CAN CLAIM – EXCEPT DEMOCRACY
The domestic backdrop makes the agreement more concerning. On the same day Trump announced the Greenland deal, reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied access and their credentials confiscated.
Earlier this month, International IDEA reported that nearly half of its 30 indicators for US democracy had fallen to their lowest levels since its dataset began in 1975.
This is not a separate political theatre. At home, the president claims the power to decide which media are legitimate. Abroad, he claims the power to decide which states and investments are legitimate within an ally’s territory. Both moves replace reciprocal rules with personal permission and treat disagreement as disloyalty.
But for Trump, the timing of the Greenland “deal” is unusually favourable. The announcement comes shortly before the November midterm elections and while the war with Iran and his broader foreign policy record have become major political liabilities.
A September Quinnipiac poll found only 29 per cent of registered voters approved of Trump’s handling of Iran, while 65 per cent disapproved. His foreign policy approval stood at 33 per cent.
Congressional Republicans have also begun defecting on war-powers votes as the conflict drags on. Instead of defending an open-ended war, Trump can now take a victory lap and claim his threats delivered a permanent strategic gain.
Denmark and Greenland also gain something important. They avoid annexation, forced sale, and the immediate danger of a confrontation within NATO. Their joint public statement explicitly preserves sovereignty, territorial integrity and Greenlandic self-determination.
NATO receives a reprieve. In our January article, we argued Trump’s threats created an extraordinary possibility: the alliance’s founding member could become a direct threat to another member’s territory.
The agreement removes that immediate danger and creates a common Arctic-security agenda. NATO’s institutional coherence is maintained, but that does not mean political trust has been restored.
SECURITY ACCESS WASHINGTON LARGELY HAD ALREADY
The gap between Trump’s language and the apparent substance of the agreement is significant. Under the 1951 defence agreement, later supplemented in 2004, the United States already possesses nearly total overflight and basing rights. The BBC account of the agreement likewise shows how far the outcome falls short of ownership.
The new agreement may still contain meaningful additions such as restrictions on non-NATO military bases and US approval over certain sensitive investments.
However, these gains fall well short of Trump’s repeated demand to own or control Greenland. He has negotiated down from annexation to expanded access, then marketed that retreat as maximum victory.
The diplomatic cost is high and will be felt long-term. A recent Reuters investigation found European governments increasingly question whether the United States is a reliable security partner.
Officials also warned that declining confidence in Washington weakens the credibility of Article 5, which says an armed attack against one member is an attack against all, triggering a mutual defence obligation.
Denmark is neither an adversary, nor a free rider. It is a NATO ally that has increased defence spending, committing 14.6 billion kroner (US$2.2 billion) to Arctic defence in January. It also consistently supports US-led operations.
Instead of pursuing security objectives through ordinary alliance consultation, US threats of territorial acquisition forced Denmark into talks designed to remove a danger created by their supposed protector. The resulting agreement is mere damage control over a malignant alliance system.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE GOES NORTH
The 2025 National Security Strategy promised to reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine, which opposes interference by any external power other than the US in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It is designed to stop competitors from outside the hemisphere positioning forces or owning strategically vital assets within it. This agreement delivers exactly that.
Greenland has been here before. Days after Germany invaded Denmark in April 1940, then Secretary of State Cordell Hull told the British ambassador the Monroe Doctrine covered Greenland without qualification, warning off a British and Canadian plan to occupy the island first.
A year later, Denmark’s envoy in Washington signed a defence agreement recognising Danish sovereignty while granting the US exclusive jurisdiction inside the defence areas.
That is how the doctrine has always worked. It has never required owning land, only deciding who else may enter, allies included. Latin America knows the pattern well.
Denmark keeps the flag, the courts and the welfare state. Sovereignty stays in Copenhagen. Decisions about who else may enter move to Washington.
WHERE DOES NATO FIT?
In January, Greenland’s prime minister said the island’s security and defence belong in NATO. What emerged instead was negotiated bilaterally, outside the alliance, under a strategy that also signals a halt to NATO enlargement. Washington is acting as Greenland’s security guarantor in its own right.
Allies have taken notice. Reuters reported this week that at least eight members, including Denmark, are moving to reduce their reliance on US weapons and defence technology.
When a loyal ally can be squeezed over land inside its own territory, collective defence starts to look like an open protection racket.
Others will draw the lesson. Washington objects when Russia claims authority over its neighbours, but that objection is harder to sustain while building the same arrangement in the Arctic – at an ally’s expense. Latin America spent most of the 20th century inside that arrangement. Europe is now being invited to find out what it is like.
The agreement should be judged not only by what Trump failed to take. It must also be judged by the precedent it sets.
Washington has shown it can threaten an ally, extract negotiations for expanded privileges, describe the result as permanent control, and then claim credit for restoring stability.
That is Monroe Doctrine 2.0 in practice. It may preserve NATO’s formal coherence while accelerating the loss of trust on which the alliance ultimately depends.
Shannon Brincat is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Juan Zahir Naranjo Caceres is Sessional Academic in International Relations, Political Science and Legal Studies at University of the Sunshine Coast. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation.
Source: Others/el
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