Secretary of State Marco Rubio is celebrating the new US-Denmark-Greenland security deal, calling it "a very positive deal" that delivered what President Trump cared about most. Rubio said the agreement protects the national security of the United States and of its NATO and North American allies. He also said it means a potential adversary can no longer gain access, through commercial means, to anything that could harm those countries. The deal was signed on September 22 at the UN by Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and it updates the 1951 US-Denmark defense arrangements for the island. It lets the US modernize and expand Pituffik Space Base, set up new defense areas at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig in the east, and add more areas later, while keeping non-NATO countries from setting up military installations or investing in sensitive areas such as those rich in rare earths.

The agreement came after months of tension over Trump's repeated threats to take control of Greenland. Rubio has said the US interest is about national security rather than territorial conquest, pointing to competition over shipping routes and the growing role of space in warfare. Danish officials have stressed that Arctic security now falls under NATO oversight and that the US will pay for any new bases, while Trump described the deal as giving the US permanent control over the island's security, so each side is describing the same agreement quite differently. Technical details of the new defense areas still have to be agreed, and one analysis describes the deal as confirming unimpeded US military access to the island. The big open question is how the deal will play out for Greenland itself and its people.