President Donald Trump’s yearslong threats to take over Greenland have crescendoed this week. On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is considering a range of options in pursuit of the country, and that “utilising the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.”
But according to foreign policy experts, Danish officials have been baffled by Trump’s threats to resort to military intervention to gain control of Greenland because there’s already a long-standing agreement in place for the U.S. to increase its military presence there. In 1951, the U.S. and Denmark signed a little-known defense agreement allowing the U.S. “to improve and generally to fit the area for military use” in Greenland and “construct, install, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment” there.
