The recent agreement between the United States, Greenland and Denmark excludes mining or drilling rights while strengthening Greenland’s sovereignty.
Published on October 14, 2026
Denmark has demanded that exploration of U.S. resources in Greenland respect the island’s laws, as President Donald Trump said oil, gas and mineral extraction would begin there soon.
The Danish Foreign Ministry reiterated on Wednesday that last month’s agreement between Denmark, Greenland and the United States did not change extraction rules.
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The agreement “does not grant US investors any preferential treatment” over investors from other NATO and EU countries with regard to access to Greenland’s natural resources, the ministry said.
In an article on Truth Social, US President Trump called the semi-autonomous Danish territory “our new, beautiful Greenland”.
“Massive oil, gas and mineral exploration is about to begin,” he wrote, without providing details.
What the agreement covers
Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen signed the 10-page agreement on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 22, ending months of tensions following Trump’s threats to control Greenland.
The agreement allows the United States to “modernize and expand” its activities at the Pituffik space base, a remote US military installation in northwest Greenland.
It also paved the way for two new military bases and Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense system, while reaffirming Danish sovereignty and the Greenlanders’ right to self-determination.
It did not grant any mining or drilling rights.
The Greenland ban
Greenland has banned uranium mining and all future oil exploration in 2021.
His government is examining whether a Texas company, Greenland Energy, can use permits from before the ban.
The company announced in August that it planned to drill for oil in 2027 in an untested basin on Greenland’s east coast, although it did not have its own permit.
Danish security policy adviser Jacob Kaarsbo said Trump’s comments could indicate his desire to control Greenland remains unchanged.
“It is extremely dangerous to view this agreement between the Trump administration and Denmark as something that changed Trump’s intentions,” he said.
Mikkel Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told Al Jazeera that details regarding mining and exploration rights remained unclear and that information coming mainly from the US side should be taken “with a grain of salt”.
Richard Weitz, a researcher at the NATO Defense College in Rome, said Trump “went back and settled for less” than he wanted, but still “got pretty much everything he wanted except formal annexation.”
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