What does the Defense of Greenland Agreement actually say?
President Trump says the U.S. needs more control over Greenland. But a 1951 treaty already grants wide military access.
On the Monday, January 26, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Trump says he’s secured a win on Greenland, even as key questions remain unanswered. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers breaks down the stakes and the gaps.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
After weeks of escalating threats and bluster regarding Greenland, it seems that President Donald Trump has finally reached a mutual agreement with Denmark. What is it, and why does it matter?
Hello and welcome to USA TODAY’s The Excerpt. I’m Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, January 26th, 2026. Joining me to discuss the nitty-gritty of the new deal is USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers. It’s good to have you here, Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Thanks so much.
Dana Taylor:
I’d like to start out with a little refresher here. Why is it that Greenland became such a dominant topic of conversation for Trump and his administration? What is its strategic value?
Francesca Chambers:
Well, recall that in his first term, President Donald Trump also talked about his desire for the United States to acquire Greenland, so this is something that he has been speaking about for quite a long time. Then once he came back into office last year at the beginning of 2025, he re-raised this issue.
As far as strategic value goes, I mean, Greenland is situated in the Arctic between the United States, as well as Denmark and Russia. So it sits at a point where, as the President has argued, that if there were some sort of a conflict between the United States and its NATO allies against Russia or China, there would be a lot of strategic value in having military bases on Greenland, where, by the way, the United States already has a military base and where NATO already operates in conjunction with Denmark.
But President Trump, his thinking on this has been if there was any other future conflict, that currently he says Denmark doesn’t have enough of a military presence on the island. And he’s argued that going back to World War II, when the original agreement between the United States and Denmark and its NATO allies came into full force, that Denmark has never had enough of a military presence there, and that’s actually why the United States had to come to Greenland’s aid at that time. So he sees this as a decades-long argument that he’s now brought to the forefront with tensions on the rise globally.
Dana Taylor:
Francesca, I realize there are still some ongoing negotiations as of this recording, but what’s the general framework Trump has shared?
Francesca Chambers:
I think it’s really important that we refer to it as a framework right now because we don’t know all of the details and it’s not quite to a deal yet. In fact, President Trump told reporters on his way back from Davos, Switzerland, where he spoke at the International Economic Forum that’s held there annually, that this is something that he expects to be worked out in the next two weeks. So we know that there have been conversations about this. We know that President Trump says that he will have total access, the US will have total access to Greenland as part of this framework. It would somehow involve potentially more US military bases on the island. But we don’t know all of the details of this.
One thing that we also do know is that what’s not under discussion right now is the United States actually acquiring or owning Greenland, which was something that President Trump has said all along that he wanted to have here. He has said that the US would need it for psychological purposes. And when he was in Davos, he actually talked in his speech about the fact that he didn’t think that leasing it would be a good option. You can’t build on or defend things that you lease. So when we see this framework, not expecting an acquisition of some kind, potentially greater involvement of the United States in the security of Greenland.
Trump declares victory on Greenland, but what did he actually secure?
Trump says he’s won on Greenland — even as major questions about the deal remain.
Dana Taylor:
Of course, the US and Denmark already have a treaty, the Defense of Greenland Agreement, that’s been in place since 1951. Francesca, what does it say?
Francesca Chambers:
So that treaty already allows the United States, in cooperation and collaboration with Denmark, to have military bases on the island. I mean, the US does have one there already, but it could have more. And throughout this entire saga, Denmark has been pointing back to that treaty to say that the United States could have more bases and that it was interested in having that conversation with the President. And indeed, that’s when he was responding and saying, “No, the US needs to own Greenland.” It’s not completely clear how what’s under negotiation would differ from the 1951 treaty, which specifically talks about defense areas and says that the United States can operate its military out of Greenland.
Dana Taylor:
With regards to defending Greenland, Trump brought up the Golden Dome. Can you remind us, what exactly is the Golden Dome?
Francesca Chambers:
So the Golden Dome is a missile defense structure that would be very similar to what Israel has, it’s basically an anti-missile defense structure that would shoot down missiles over the United States, as well as, as President Trump is saying, as Canada. And one thing that he has said is that this Golden Dome structure would also extend over Greenland as well. It’s not entirely clear when he would expect that to be done or other areas it would cover, but that was something that he referred to in his speech as well. But the White House is hoping to have the Golden Dome done before the end of President Donald Trump’s term.
Dana Taylor:
As you said, the President gave a 90-minute speech at Davos. In that speech last Wednesday, Francesca, somewhat meandering speech, he appeared to confuse Greenland and Iceland a few times. He also shared that he won’t, quote, “use force” to acquire Greenland. Meanwhile, the President has been threatening force for weeks. He also threatened to put tariffs on any European country that stood in his way, but pulled that back too. What do you think changed his mind? Do you have any insights there?
Francesca Chambers:
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, I mean, that was a big factor. The President met with Rutte, who’s been referred to as the Trump Whisperer, at the Davos Conference, and then he said afterwards, the President did on his Truth Social post, that after talking with him that a framework had been reached, an agreement had been reached here. And that was very notable, because sources I’d spoken to beforehand thought really that only Rutte could get him to walk back off of what they saw as this ledge that he was walking towards.
I wrote last week about how it was pushing NATO to the brink, because with the President threatening to potentially use military force against Denmark, that put the United States in direct conflict with a NATO ally, and it really raised questions about Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which says that an attack on one ally is an attack on all essentially. Now, if the US had or tried ever to use military force there, it would be up to Denmark to invoke Article 5 in the first place. But it gets into a really tricky and sticky situation, because one of the top commanders for NATO is a US general, has always been a US general in that position. And so, there were just a lot of things there that made this very challenging for the United States and for its NATO allies.
You also brought up the tariffs that President Trump was threatening. These tariffs, he said that they would hit countries that were opposing this. But the EU is one trade block, so it wouldn’t just hit the countries that he was mentioning, which included Denmark and France and other countries, it would be the entire European Union. So then you really saw, I think, this robust pushback, this unity among European nations on what he was proposing here, not to say they hadn’t before, but it definitely was a motivating factor.
Then the other third thing I would hit on is the stock market. After President Donald Trump got up at the White House podium in this surprise appearance, he made a surprise appearance at the White House press briefing on Tuesday of last week, you saw the stock market take a big dip. The S&P had its worst day in months on Tuesday. Then it rebounded after the President got up in a speech the next day at Davos and said he wouldn’t use military force, then, of course, sent out that Truth Social post that we were talking about, saying that he had spoken to Mark Rutte about this. So the President himself, by the way, when he was in an interview with Fox business host Maria Bartiromo at the end of his time in Davos, mentioned the stock market and mentioned that it seemed to like the news that he put out there, so the President clearly paying attention to what was going on with the stock market and considering it as a factor.
Dana Taylor:
Francesca, as you mentioned, Trump also took aim at NATO in the speech, which Denmark and the US are both founding members of. From his first term, we know that Trump was never happy with what NATO members were spending on defense. Because of Greenland’s location, close to the US, but also close to the Nordic countries, its defense is key to NATO security. What did he say there, and how did Denmark respond?
Francesca Chambers:
Well, notably, prior to this, Denmark has already responded by saying that it was going to increase defense and security on the island of Greenland, and it also worked with other NATO allies to put a small increase in contingent of troops there as well. So NATO was trying to show, during this dispute with Trump, that it is hearing his concerns and putting a greater sense of defense around the island of Greenland. But it’s interesting that the Danish have already said that they haven’t seen Chinese warships there anytime recently in response to Trump’s concerns about these things. I think the President and the White House have essentially responded by saying, “Yes, but what if there was? What if there was in the future?”
When it comes to defense spending and NATO, you’re hitting on a very important point of Trump’s first year in office, he had pushed NATO nations, going back to his first term, to spend more on defense. Then he secured this win at the last NATO conference, where allies agreed to bump up their spending to 5%, which includes infrastructure and other things too, but to essentially collectively boost their spending to 5% of GDP. That was seen as a big deal, considering that it had been at 2% as the floor before. The most recent action they had taken to say was it should be at least 2%. So this was more than a doubling in how much of the spending that that would be. So Denmark and other countries are already spending more, or saying that they’re going to spend more, but President Trump has really wanted them to speed up with that spending.
Dana Taylor:
Francesca Chambers as a USA TODAY White House correspondent. Thank you so much for your insights here, Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Thanks so much.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan, for her production assistance. Our executive producer’s Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcast@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I’m Dana Taylor. I’ll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY’s The Excerpt.