Extract from ABC News
Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum at Davos that Greenland was "in a key strategic location between the United States, Russia and China". (Reuters: Denis Balibouse)
Donald Trump had been insisting Greenland would need to belong to the United States, but after a week of intensifying rhetoric over the Arctic island, it seems order has been restored on his European front, albeit with some damage done.
Denmark says it has no knowledge of the deal Mr Trump is now touting, but the president of the United States says he has secured "total access" to its Greenland territory.
The details of the deal are yet to be seen, but analysts argue that as part of a strong and trusted NATO alliance, access to Greenland for the US military has long been an option available to him.
Instead, relations between the bloc have "taken a big blow", according to one EU leader, and the sense the United States can be relied on has been somewhat damaged.
The president of the United States has long said he needed to control Greenland for national security reasons, but China and Russia have both rebuffed that line.
In truth, there are security concerns in the Arctic region — a place at the top of the world where Russia stores so much of its nuclear arsenal.
But a fracture or "rupture" of the North Atlantic alliance, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signalled earlier in the week, would have only put the Kremlin in a much stronger position, according to Arctic and Russia analysts.
In the wake of his Davos speech, Mr Trump posted to Truth Social, saying in a meeting with NATO chief Mark Rutte, they "formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region".
That last part could be significant.
"There is not a direct threat from Russia or China to Greenland, but there is a threat from both those actors in parts of the Arctic," said Andreas Østhagen, research director at Arctic and Ocean Politics at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway.
"In a way Donald Trump is not wrong when he says there are Russian and Chinese vessels all over the place in the Arctic, and there is an emerging security threat in the Arctic.
"That's fine, that's actually great that he's bringing attention to something the US has neglected for decades.
"But he's focusing on the wrong part of the Arctic."
Dr Østhagen said: "It's around Alaska that we're seeing Chinese military activity coupled with Russia military activity."
Vladimir Putin's Arctic
The Arctic is made up of eight nations — Russia, Canada, the United States, Norway, Denmark via Greenland, Finland, Sweden and Iceland.
It is a vast space that makes up 4 per cent of the globe, and half of its landmass is Russia.
"In the Arctic, [Russia] has the majority of its strategic nuclear weapons that [it] needs as its deterrence. It's security and survival guarantee," Dr Østhagen said.
"They're literally based just next to Norway and Finland in the north.
"And that's where we encounter Russia's aggressive military behaviour that is meant to signal to NATO countries, signal to Nordic countries, that Russia will defend itself."
The Kola Peninsula is considered the crux of Russia's military infrastructure and borders Norway and Finland.
It is here Russia could launch an attack on the US Eastern Seaboard.
Greenland does possess a natural geographic advantage for potential foes of Russia, but as part of NATO and under a treaty signed with Denmark in 1951, the Trump administration can already benefit from that, Dr Østhagen said.
"Because anything that Russia wants to send towards North America or the US [specifically] — especially if Russia wants to send ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, or bombers with nuclear reactors onboard — they would be travelling primarily towards the Eastern Seaboards, towards Washington DC," he said.
"And to some extent [they would] cross over Greenland. So Greenland would be … quite important for detection and response for airborne threats coming from Russia and that's why the US already has the military base Pituffik Space Base."
Russia expert and visiting fellow to the Australian National University Leonid Petrov said the Arctic region gave Vladimir Putin a myriad of ways to exert power and deterrence, both across the world and at home.
"It's potentially important and currently important — the current importance it is it's underpopulated so you can experiment with nuclear tests, ballistic missiles, you can hide things, you can send political rivals of Putin there," he said, noting the "Polar Wolf" prison above the Arctic Circle where Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in 2024.
"But also it has a lot of potential because of the natural resources, because of the northern transportation like shipment routes."
Significance of 'Greenland debacle'
Dr Petrov said the significance of Donald Trump's designs on Greenland for Mr Putin was not rooted in the island's geography, but in the diplomatic fracture it was creating.
"Vladimir Putin is applauding," he said.
"Whether a few thousand American troops are there or not doesn't really matter. Americans have their nuclear weapons everywhere in Europe.
"Putin would welcome this scenario. What Putin dreams about is the war between the United States and European Union."
Satellite imagery shows the Gadzhiyevo naval base, located on the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The facility serves the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy. (Getty: Maxar Technologies)
Mr Trump first set his sights on Greenland in his first term and has harked back to different eras in American history when Washington transacted its way to territory expansion.
It was the Abraham Lincoln-era secretary of state William Seward who negotiated the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia.
"It was called at the time 'Seward's Folly' because it was a vast, barren, inhospitable territory, but obviously Seward, in a certain sense, got the last historical laugh on this," said Dana Allin, senior fellow in US foreign policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Reflecting on the significance of Mr Trump's rhetoric and threats of tariffs to America's longtime and most important ally over the future of Greenland, he said trust had likely been irreparably damaged.
"I think the lasting damage is going to be to the sense that you can rely on the United States,"Dr Allin said.
"You've been able to count on a degree of predictability from the United States, and now … that doesn't mean there weren't worries about whether the US would overreach, but there were still lines within which you would expect the United States to operate and that's gone and I don't think that's going to come back."
Dr Østhagen said "by every parameter" destabilising the NATO relationship over Greenland only worsened the security situation in the Arctic.
"The main problem in the Arctic is Russia, and it's fear of Russian aggression and of Russian volatility, ... not necessarily fear of a Russian land grab, ... it's more instability and escalation that could be part of a broader conflict," he said.
He said any sense the US was no longer willing to stand by its allies would increase the chance of that happening.
"The only benefactor of this Greenland debacle is Vladimir Putin," he said.
Climate change, as well as global demand for resources, has increased interest in the Arctic, including from China. (Getty: Liu Shiping/Xinhua)
He said when it came to Chinese interests, the US had more to worry about in the Arctic region near Alaska.
"If you're worried about Chinese security or economic interests in the Arctic then you have to focus on Alaska … so Greenland has nothing to do with this at all," he said.
"It's really a misguided own goal."
Arctic politics is opening up
Greenland is the largest island in the Arctic and the largest in the world, that is not a continent.
In the depths of Northern Hemisphere winter, it is among the Arctic nations surrounded by sea ice frozen into an impenetrable mass.
But when summer comes, the ice starts to retreat and as the climate changes, that retreat is increasing and revealing more opportunities for shipping and mining and that is attracting global interest.
Dr Østhagen said a "perfect storm" of factors was driving interest in the top of the world.
"The underlining contextual driver is climate change, it's literally changing and opening up the Arctic region because sea ice is disappearing and at some point, within a couple of decades, there will be no sea ice in summer time," he said.
"The North Pole will be a point you sail past."
Data shows how the extent of the sea ice just a few days ago in the depth of the Northern Hemisphere winter compared to late September, when ships are able to sail through the Arctic.
The extent of the Arctic sea ice recorded a few days ago. (ABC News: National Snow and Ice Data Center)
The extent of the Arctic sea ice recorded in late September. (ABC News: National Snow and Ice Data Center)
While the climate has been changing, the world has come to need the minerals — as well as the oil and gas — the ice has kept in a frozen vault deep within the Earth.
That is bringing research missions from countries around the world, and economic interest too.
"There will be more shipping in the Arctic, exactly where and by whom is unclear, because you're dependent on going through the Russian Arctic," Dr Østhagen said.
"These factors have been driving the Arctic interest in the last decade, but coupled with this is the fear of escalation with Russia."
Mr Trump has claimed "China and Russia want Greenland".
China denies that and experts say Vladimir Putin is not interested in a land grab, but positioning the Arctic has become very important.
"The Arctic is changing and opening up and … countries need to position themselves strategically in advance … and that's also where you get a lot of the Chinese interest," Dr Østhagen said.
He said interest in the Arctic was now also coming from India, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.
"It's more of this status seeking, or strategic positioning," he said.
"It's because there is this notion that something is happening up there, more will happen and we need to be prepared."
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