Trump’s Greenland ‘Deal’ Appears To Exist Only In His Head

Denmark says it has no intention of ceding any territory on the Arctic island, raising the question of what he achieved beyond sowing chaos and bad blood.

WASHINGTON – Despite “psychologically” needing to acquire Greenland, President Donald Trump Thursday headed back to the United States with just “the framework” of an agreement that appears to exist only in his own mind.

Weeks of antagonizing both Denmark and all of NATO with threats of tariffs and even war, in Trump’s telling, won the United States key concessions in the Danish territory following a one-on-one meeting with the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“We’re getting everything we wanted ― total security, total access to everything,” Trump bragged to Fox Business Thursday morning, acknowledging that the details are still being worked out. “Essentially, it’s total access. There’s no end. There’s no time limit.”

Yet Trump could barely begin his victory lap for his claimed achievement before it began falling apart. Rutte ― who notwithstanding his strategy of continually praising Trump to avoid conflicts felt the need Wednesday to publicly correct Trump’s false claim about NATO’s willingness to protect the United States if needed — said Greenland never even came up in his discussion with Trump.

Then, after the White House leaked a claim that the agreement would give the U.S. ownership of “small pockets of land” on Greenland for military purposes, the Danish prime minister announced that that was not true.