The USA has been asserting claims to Greenland for over a year and has also threatened to resort to military means. An agreement has now been negotiated that is intended to give the USA extensive military and economic powers. But the EU also wants to assert its interests in the region more strongly in the future.

Greenland is the largest island in the world and is of great relevance to many countries both geostrategically compared to China and Russia and economically due to its large raw material reserves. It plays a special role for the USA.

For this reason, the USA has been making claims to the island for some time and has even threatened to do soannex. Since Greenland is autonomous, but still belongs to the Danish Kingdom and therefore also to NATO, this not only caused dissatisfaction among the residents of Greenland, but also a lot of tension within the military alliance, whose integrity was thereby called into question.

Annexation of Greenland: End of NATO?

Complete control by the USA?

However, the dispute over Greenland is now to be replaced by a new oneAgreementhave found its end. The agreement was negotiated between the USA, Denmark and Greenland and announced on Friday. However, the agreement has not yet been signed. That won't happen until the UN General Assembly next week in New York. The deal then has to go through parliamentary processes before it comes into force.

According to onepostby Donald Trump on Truth Social The deal is intended to give the US “permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland.” At the same time, this deal means that no “enemy” of the USA can have military bases in Greenland and cannot make sensitive investments on the island without written permission from the USA. In doing so, the USA is expanding not only its military but also economic control over Greenland. According to its own statements, the USA primarily wants to prevent Russia and China from expanding their influence on the island.

He also emphasized that the deal was forever and would not expire. According to Trump, the US would immediately begin establishing a large military presence on the island in appropriate locations, of which there are many, according to him.

WEF 2026: About Greenland and major powers

Since the deal has not yet been completed, the other parties have so far commented less in detail. The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen made a statement in a statementExplanationIn particular, attention is drawn to the fact that the deal would explicitly recognize the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Danish Kingdom and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination.

An open question, however, is whether the agreement will cover the island's raw materials. Greenland has large deposits of various minerals and raw materials such as uranium, copper, diamonds, gold, graphite, iron, nickel, tungsten, zinc and rare earth. These minerals are highly sought after and are needed to make hundreds of different technological devices and products from cell phones to fighter jets. Trump has therefore often been interested in the raw materials on the islandannounced, but did not mention this in his statement about the deal.

The EU also wants to become a player in the region

But not only the USA currently has its eyes on Greenland and the Arctic region, but also the EU. At a summit in the northern Finnish city of Rovaniemi in the Arctic Circle earlier this weekdecidedthat the EU needs to act more strategically and proactively in the European Arctic. To this end, information exchange and surveillance should be improved and investments should improve military mobility and other critical infrastructure.

Canada and the EU: Alliance for the future?

The EU is also economically interested in the critical raw materials in the region, as well as in new shipping routes created by the climate-related decline in Arctic sea ice. The EU Commission has already decided on an investment package of 200 million euros, which will be used, among other things, for infrastructure that is necessary for the extraction of raw materials.

The EU says the attention it has recently been paying to the region is mainly due to a growing threat from Russia. They also don't want to simply leave this region to China and the USA. Since then the USA has increased its aggressiveness in theForeign policyhave increased since the beginning of Donald Trump's second term in office, the EU is also trying to represent its own interests more strongly vis-à-vis the USA and other countries. To make this possible, many EU countries are currently massively upgrading, with Germany being at the forefront.

The postPlanned agreement grants US military control over Greenlandappeared firstperspective.