The Parliament of Greenland has given this Tuesday a “green light” to a new agreement on security and defense with the United States, announced last September by President Donald Trump and subsequently signed by him together with the authorities of the island and of Denmark, the country on which this autonomous territory depends.
The text, signed by the occupant of the White House, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York, has received the Chamber’s backing with 16 votes in favor and seven abstentions, with no votes against.
Now the agreement remains pending ratification by the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen, in a vote scheduled for November 19. Once the United States is informed through diplomatic channels of the outcome of both votes, the pact may finally enter into force.
After the understanding with Denmark and Greenland, Trump himself noted that the agreement will allow Washington to permanently take control of security and other strategic needs of the Arctic island, while Frederiksen described it as a new turning point in the relationship between the parties.
The document explicitly maintains Danish sovereignty over Greenland and recognizes the right of its population to self-determination, while also providing for a strengthening of the U.S. military presence in the Arctic territory, after months of tensions due to Trump’s demands, who came to threaten to take the island by force by appealing to reasons of national security.