Denmark has insisted that a recent agreement with the United States and Greenland does not grant Washington or American companies rights to extract oil, gas or minerals, after Donald Trump said exploration was preparing to begin on the semi-autonomous territory.
The Danish Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that US resource exploration in Greenland must comply with the island’s laws. It also stressed that American investors had not been given preferential access to Greenland’s natural resources over investors from other NATO or European Union countries.
Trump described Greenland on Truth Social as “our new and beautiful Greenland” and wrote: “Massive Oil, Gas, and Mineral Exploration is getting ready to begin.” He did not provide further details.
What the Greenland agreement covers
The 10-page agreement was signed in New York on September 22 by Trump, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, following months of tension over the US president’s threats to take control of the territory.
It allows the US to “modernise and expand” its activities at Pituffik Space Base, the remote American military installation in north-west Greenland. The agreement also paved the way for two new military bases and Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defence system.
However, the accord reaffirmed Danish sovereignty and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination. It did not allocate mining or drilling rights.
Greenland’s ban on oil exploration
Greenland banned uranium mining and all future oil exploration in 2021. Its government is now reviewing whether a Texas-based company, Greenland Energy, can use permits issued before the ban.
The company said in August that it planned to drill for oil in 2027 in an untested basin off Greenland’s east coast, although it does not have its own permit.
Jacob Kaarsbo, a Danish security policy adviser, said Trump’s comments could indicate that his ambition to control Greenland had not changed.
“It is extremely dangerous to view this agreement between the Trump administration and Denmark as something that has altered Trump’s intentions,” he said.
Mikkel Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said details about mining and exploration rights remained unclear. Information coming mainly from the US side should be taken “with a grain of salt”, he said.
Richard Weitz, a fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome, said Trump had “backed down and settled for less” than he initially sought, but had still “got pretty much everything he wanted, except formal annexation”.
