Denmark says the preliminary agreement announced by Trump on Greenland does not challenge its sovereignty

BarcelonaGreenland can seem to breathe a little easier, at least for now. After NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US President Donald Trump held talks on the Arctic on Wednesday evening, The White House leader announced a preliminary agreement yesterday. which he described as "a great solution for the US and all NATO nations." The grandiloquence of this statement—and the fact that the framework for an agreement was with Rutte, who usually pushes Trump—raised some red flags. But shortly after the announcement, Rutte himself clarified in an interview on Fox News that the "focus" of the conversation was on how to "protect" the Arctic region in general. This Thursday, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, explained that Rutte told her that the conversation with Trump did not include negotiations on the Nordic country's sovereignty over Greenland. "NATO is fully aware of the Kingdom of Denmark's position. We can negotiate on all political matters: security, investments, the economy. But we cannot negotiate on our sovereignty. I have been informed that this was not the case either," Frederiksen stated in a press release.

So far, however, there has been almost no public confirmation of the agreement in principle between Trump and NATO. According to the German newspaper Der SpiegelThe preliminary agreement between Trump and Rutte includes the withdrawal of the threat of new tariffs—which the US president already verbalized Wednesday night—the renegotiation of the agreement for the stationing of US troops in Greenland, and Washington's control over investments in the Arctic region. Rutte stated on Thursday that the conversation revolved around how to "ensure" that the United States, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway "collectively guarantee that the Arctic remains secure." The NATO Secretary General also framed the conversation with Trump and the interest in the Arctic as an attempt to keep "the Russians and the Chinese out" of the region, and asserted that his "main adversary" remains Russia.

In this context, the Danish Prime Minister emphasized that her government is willing to discuss Arctic security, since "it is a NATO issue." Therefore, Frederiksen considers it "good and natural" for the US and NATO to talk, and stresses in the statement that Denmark "has worked for a long time to increase NATO's commitment in the Arctic." German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also expressed support for the talks between Trump and Rutte, asserting that the preliminary agreement "is the right path" and serves to "move in the right direction" to resolve the crisis caused by the US expansionist threat.

Meeting of European leaders

Meanwhile, this Thursday afternoon, European heads of state and government will meet in Brussels to discuss how to address relations with the US in light of the threat in Greenland. Initially, the summit was to focus primarily on finding a response to Washington's tariff threat, but Trump's move yesterday, in which he assured that he would not impose tariffs following the preliminary agreement reached with Rutte, will change the agenda.

Before this meeting of the 27, the G7 members will meet in Paris. The US president will not attend the meeting, convened by French President Emmanuel Macron: he declined to be there on Tuesday. after publishing the private message in which Macron proposed the meeting.