Greenland

Greenland is the world's largest island, four fifths covered by ice, with fifty-seven thousand people, nine in ten of them Inuit. It belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, governs itself in most matters, and has a legal right to independence whenever its people vote for it. It lies on the shortest path between Russia and North America, hosts an American missile warning base, and has rare earths under its rock. The American president has said since 2025 that the United States must have it, has declined to rule out force, and in January 2026 put tariffs on European countries that stood with Denmark.

The wider region and the powers in it: The Arctic.

Where it stands · September 2026

In September 2026 the European Union pledged a 200-million-euro package for Greenland. The United States and Denmark reached a deal on Greenland security, and the United States, Denmark and Greenland moved to sign an Arctic security agreement. The United States will build two new military bases in Greenland. The American president signed the Arctic security pact with Denmark and Greenland.

What the dispute is about

Security. Washington says it cannot leave the island to a small ally that cannot defend it while Russia and China move into the Arctic. Denmark answers that a treaty of 1951 already lets America base whatever forces it wants there.

Minerals. Greenland has large deposits of rare earths, which China otherwise controls. Almost none is mined: no roads, no ports, no workers, and a Greenlandic law against mining uranium, which lies in the same rock.

Whose decision. Denmark says Greenland is not for sale and that only Greenlanders can decide its future. Greenland's parties nearly all want independence in time. None wants to exchange Copenhagen for Washington.

How each side explains it

Washington's account

Greenland sits between America and its adversaries and guards the sea lane that Russian submarines must pass. Denmark defended it for decades with dog sleds and a few patrol boats, and spent on it only when America complained. Chinese companies tried to buy a naval base and build its airports. The United States protected the island through the Second World War and the Cold War and has bought territory from Denmark before. America would invest what Denmark never did, and the people would be better off. One way or another the island will be secured.

In our coverage

US strategic expansion (Greenland, hemisphere) is legitimate necessity →3 headlines
Covered by:Newsmax

Nuuk's account

Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders. They were a Danish colony for two centuries and are not going to become an American one. They want to trade with America, to welcome its investment and to host its base as they have for seventy-five years. They will decide on independence themselves, at their own pace. Nothing about Greenland can be settled without Greenland, whether in Copenhagen, Washington or Brussels.

In our coverage

What each account leaves out

Washington's leaves out that the 1951 agreement already gives it nearly free military use of the island, and that it was America which cut its own presence there from some ten thousand to about two hundred; that it recognised Danish sovereignty in writing in 1916; and that some four Greenlanders in five tell pollsters they do not want to be American.

Nuuk's leaves out that Denmark's annual grant pays for about half of Greenland's public budget, and that no plan for independence yet shows what would replace it, or who would patrol an island four times the size of France.

Copenhagen's leaves out its own record: families moved by force to make way for the American base, children taken to Denmark in a social experiment, thousands of women and girls fitted with contraceptive coils without consent; and that its new spending on Greenland began when Washington started asking.

Moscow's and Beijing's leaves out what each has done to its own neighbours' borders and waters.

The ledger

The United States

Wanted: ownership, or rights that amount to it.
Gained: Danish and European money and forces flowing to an island it said was undefended, and talks on wider access.
Paid: the trust of one of its most loyal allies, and of the islanders it would need to win.

Denmark

Wanted: the kingdom intact and the alliance with it.
Did: spent, apologised for the past, rallied Europe.
Gained: European backing.
Paid: the discovery that its security guarantor is its territorial problem.

Greenlanders

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

purchase, acquisition / annexation
national security necessity / imperialism
self-determination
the Kingdom of Denmark / colonial power
free association
not for sale

Events per week

Per-week distribution of events. Click a bar to see that week's top events.

Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.

Week of Sep 28, 2026(4)

A day with graphite mining teams in Greenland

1 sourcesOct 4, 2026

Greenland Mines finds gallium and vanadium at Skaergaard

1 sourcesOct 1, 2026

How the Greenland Deal Secures the Arctic - nationalinterest.org

1 sourcesSep 30, 2026

Secretive group’s latest anti-Trump artwork placed in D.C. — and Greenland

1 sourcesSep 29, 2026