The Trump administration on Tuesday signed an agreement with the Kingdom of Denmark and the autonomous territory of Greenland at the United Nations. It affirms and expands the American military presence in Greenland while maintaining Greenlandic autonomy and Danish sovereignty. But an agreement allowing access is only the beginning. Washington must now turn it into an enduring Arctic pillar of North Atlantic defense.
President Donald Trump has been maneuvering toward a Greenland deal since 2019, during his first term. And like much of what Trump touches, Greenland has become a partisan and geopolitical flashpoint ever since. Nevertheless, the island of Greenland is critical to the strategic security of the Arctic and North Atlantic, an increasingly contested frontier with Russia. For all of Trump’s critiques of NATO, he is moving toward significantly bolstering the security of its members. Improving U.S. military infrastructure and limiting adversaries’ influence are important goals. The harder business is now to institutionalize this agreement so it establishes an enduring strategic security arrangement for the North Atlantic.
This week’s agreement is a major step, but it is not the endpoint. The language of the agreement makes it permanent on paper, but the United States must now make it permanent in practice. If Greenland is to become an institutional pillar for Arctic and American defense, much as Germany and Japan serve as military hubs in Europe and the western Pacific, Washington now needs to fund, build, and secure the Greenland expansion.
First, fund it. The White House has touted the agreement as coming at “no cost to American taxpayers.” The agreement itself may be free. Implementing it will not be. Expanding America’s military presence means constructing and maintaining bases, deploying personnel and equipment, and building the infrastructure necessary to operate in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments. That requires money, and therefore Congress.
Second, build it. The agreement provides an impressive foundation. It allows the U.S. to expand Pituffik Space Base and establish new defense areas at Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland and Mestersvig in the east. It also provides procedures for establishing even more defense areas and grants the U.S. broad rights of military movement, including for aircraft and vessels.
But rights to build military infrastructure are not military infrastructure. The U.S. must develop in Greenland the kind of enduring military ecosystem it has built over decades in places such as Germany and Japan. Greenland does not need tens of thousands of American troops, as we have in those countries. But it does need the airfields, maritime facilities, sensors, logistics, prepositioned equipment, and other permanent military capabilities necessary to make it a genuine Arctic hub.
This would also fit an evolving division of responsibility within NATO. As European allies take greater responsibility for deterring Russia along the alliance’s eastern flank, the U.S. can devote greater attention to the Arctic and the northern approaches to North America. Indeed, the new agreement itself calls for greater NATO planning, presence, and exercises in the Arctic. Greenland can anchor that effort.
Third, secure it. Here, the agreement may be too dependent on the geopolitical circumstances of 2026, and on an assumption about NATO membership that is already imperfect. The agreement prohibits countries outside NATO from establishing military installations or maintaining a persistent military presence in Greenland unless the parties agree otherwise. That keeps Russia and China out. But an agreement with no expiration date should not assume that today’s NATO membership will forever distinguish friend from potential adversary.
Turkey illustrates the problem. It is a NATO member and therefore does not fall within the agreement’s categorical prohibition, even as its relationship with the U.S. and other NATO members has grown contentious, and its president is considering full membership in the China- and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. That does not mean Turkey now necessarily has a right to establish a base in Greenland, nor that it presently seeks one. It does demonstrate the weakness of using alliance membership alone as a permanent proxy for strategic alignment. Any persistent third-country military presence in Greenland must instead require affirmative American, Danish, and Greenlandic consent.
Finally, Washington should consider giving the relationship greater institutional standing and legal permanence at home. There is a strong argument on the other side: the 1951 Greenland defense agreement has survived for 75 years, was successfully modernized in 2004, and the new 2026 agreement is itself designed for extraordinary durability. It has no end date, can be amended only by mutual consent, and even anticipates its continuation if Greenland someday becomes independent.
But if Greenland develops into a permanent pillar of American defense, its legal foundation should eventually reflect that importance. America’s security relationships with Japan and South Korea rest on bilateral treaties approved by the Senate. A comparable arrangement with Greenland and Denmark, or another form of congressional institutionalization, deserves consideration as the new security dynamic develops.
TRUMP JUST LOCKED DOWN AMERICA’S FRONT LINE. NOW HE MUST BUILD THE WALL ON ICE
Trump spent years arguing that Greenland matters to American security. This week’s agreement gives the U.S. much of what it needs without acquiring Greenland itself. But legal access is not military power, and this diplomatic agreement is only as consequential as what Washington builds upon it.
The agreement has laid the foundation for improving U.S. security strategy in the Arctic. Washington now has to fund it, build it, and secure it. That is how Trump’s Greenland deal can become not just a diplomatic achievement, but something much larger: an enduring pillar of American and North Atlantic defense.
Jeremy Etelson has written political commentary for the Washington Examiner and The Hill and has appeared on Fox Business and NewsNation discussing national politics. He previously worked in congressional and Maryland politics and served as a judicial law clerk in Maryland. He holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and a master’s in Phil. in political thought and intellectual history from the University of Cambridge.