When Donald Trump first floated the idea of buying Greenland at the start of his second term, the reaction in Copenhagen was somewhere between bewilderment and fury. Two years later, according to an editorial in American Thinker, the dust has settled into an agreement that the outlet describes as a clean sweep for Washington — and a case study in Trump’s negotiating method.
On September 18, 2026, Trump announced that the United States, Denmark, and Greenland had reached a deal giving the U.S. permanent rights over security matters on the island, according to the American Thinker account. In the outlet’s framing, the announcement was “classic Trump”: open with an enormous demand — in this case, the outright purchase or annexation of Greenland — and then negotiate down to the thing you wanted all along.
What the agreement reportedly covers
The American Thinker editorial lays out six terms it says are contained in the arrangement. Under the first, the U.S. assumes full control over Greenland’s security from foreign threats, including authority to take whatever measures are necessary to protect American assets on the island. The second grants the United States the right to establish and expand permanent military bases as it sees fit, with no veto power available to either Denmark or Greenland. Third, the U.S. receives permanent overflight rights.
The fourth term is arguably the most sweeping. Non-NATO countries are barred from establishing any military presence on Greenland, and Washington gains the right to veto proposed deals that would let a non-NATO country make what the editorial calls “sensitive investments” — naming telecommunications, undersea cables, ports, and critical minerals among the dual-use sectors covered.
Fifth, the terms are permanent. And in exchange, the U.S. recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland, along with the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination.
That final clause is what makes the whole package politically digestible in Europe. Denmark keeps the flag; Washington gets the geography. The American Thinker editorial argues this is “everything the U.S. wanted” and treats it as a win not only for Trump but for Greenland’s own security and that of NATO allies more broadly.
The strategic case for the island
The editorial’s underlying argument is that Greenland is no longer a peripheral curiosity on the map but has become one of the central positions in Arctic competition. It points to four overlapping functions the island serves.
First, location. Greenland sits astride the Arctic sea lanes, giving whoever controls its security environment enormous leverage between North America, Europe, and the Arctic Ocean.
Second, missile defense. The editorial describes Greenland as a vital component of the early warning system for U.S. missile defense, with its position strengthening surveillance, early-warning coverage, and the infrastructure relevant to what it calls America’s next-generation missile-defense architecture.
Third, competition with Russia and China. In this telling, the island becomes an increasingly important barrier to Russian and Chinese military and economic expansion in the Arctic — a physical buffer as much as a symbolic one.
Fourth, resources. Greenland holds significant mineral deposits at a moment when Washington is actively trying to reduce strategic dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains. The editorial is explicit that this is not fundamentally a real estate transaction; it is, in its words, a matter of strategic geography.
How it got here
The path to the September announcement was not smooth. According to the American Thinker piece, one of Trump’s first acts in his second term was to offer Denmark the chance to sell Greenland outright — an offer that came with a threat to take the island by force if necessary. The editorial characterizes that as an opening bid, and notes that it set off a wave of European outrage, particularly in Denmark, which responded by boosting its own defense spending on Greenland.
European capitals, the editorial notes wryly, were furious. A year later, the same European governments have signed off on an arrangement giving the United States exclusive military access — which, as the editorial puts it, is what Washington wanted from the beginning.
Worth noting: the American Thinker piece is a commentary, not a neutral dispatch, and it makes no pretense otherwise. It celebrates the outcome, credits Trump’s willingness to make an “outrageous demand” as the mechanism that produced it, and frames the deal as a victory for American security. Readers looking for Copenhagen’s or Nuuk’s own account of the negotiations — how Greenlandic officials weigh the self-determination language against the permanent basing rights, or how Danish politicians justify the terms to their voters — will not find it here. The editorial also does not address whether any of the six terms face ratification hurdles, legislative challenges, or legal disputes, or what enforcement mechanisms, if any, back the veto authority over non-NATO investment.
An unproven but telling template
The broader claim embedded in the piece is about method. The American Thinker writer presents the Greenland outcome as evidence that Trump’s habit of starting negotiations at an extreme position — purchase, annexation, force — can yield concrete strategic gains that more conventional diplomacy might never reach. Whether that template travels to other disputes is a separate question, and the editorial does not attempt to answer it. It simply argues that in this case, the boxes were checked.
For supporters, the deal validates a confrontational style that they say produced a permanent American security presence in a region where Russia and China are both active. For critics, the episode raises questions the American Thinker account does not entertain — about the durability of commitments made under pressure, about the precedent of a great power extracting veto rights over a smaller ally’s investment decisions, and about what Greenlanders themselves actually gained beyond a recognition of rights they already held.
What the editorial does make clear is that it views the agreement as a strategic realignment rather than a diplomatic courtesy — the map of the Arctic, as it puts it, being redrawn. Two years after an opening bid that much of Europe treated as a provocation, Washington now holds what the piece describes as exclusive military access, permanent base rights, and a veto over the sensitive sectors of a territory it never purchased.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/winning-trump-agreement-with-greenland-and-denmark-checks-all-boxes/