Trump Says the U.S. Now Has 'Permanent Control Over Security' in Greenland Under a Deal With Denmark, After Months of Threatening to Take the Island by Force. Copenhagen Says It Kept Sovereignty, and the Signing Is Set for the U.N. Next Week.

President Donald Trump announced Friday afternoon that the United States has reached an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that he says hands Washington "permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns." The deal, posted on Truth Social and confirmed within hours by the Danish government, ends months of open threats from the president to seize the Arctic island from a NATO ally, up to and including by military force.

The full text has not been released. But a State Department official told NBC News that the agreement explicitly bans any non-NATO base or troop presence in Greenland, builds in screening mechanisms to block Russian and Chinese investment, and bars those countries and other adversaries from any investment that could threaten the United States. "The agreement explicitly guarantees the United States the complete ability to do what it deems is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the American continent, including permanent access, basing, and overflight rights," the official said. It "allows the U.S. military to increase the number of bases in Greenland as required," and will remain fully in effect "forever," including "if Greenland becomes a fully independent country."

Trump called it an "Infinite Life agreement" that comes at "NO COST" to the United States, and said his administration would work with Greenland to "immediately" begin developing "a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many." Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that "Greenland will forever be part of the strategic defense area of North America and exclude any adversary from it and the surrounding area," calling the pact a "historic deal" and a "huge win" for America.

What the deal does not do is change who owns the island. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, in a joint statement with Greenland's leaders, said the agreement "recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of the Kingdom of Denmark and the Greenlandic people's "right to self-determination," and described it as one "that strengthens our common security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area and is therefore also good for NATO and Europe." Jens-Frederik Nielsen, chairman of Greenland's government, said the deal "recognizes Greenland's interests and our place in international cooperation" and is "to the benefit of us all." Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told CBS News that "next week could be a good week … for Greenland, Denmark, and the United States alike."

The three governments expect to sign the agreement Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. It will still need approval from the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments. Greenlandic pro-sovereignty activist Orla Joelsen told CBS that "our fight against Trump's ambition to take over Greenland has been won," and Imran Bayoumi of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center told MS NOW that "Americans really underestimate how damaging it was for the image of the United States in Europe."

The United States has had a military foothold on the island since the 1951 Defense of Greenland Treaty, and during the Cold War it hosted critical missile early-warning systems. The former Thule Air Base in the northwest was handed to the new Space Force during Trump's first term and renamed Pituffik Space Base; the American presence there has been sharply reduced since its Cold War peak. Greenland, which is about three times the size of Texas but home to only around 56,000 people, sits two-thirds inside the Arctic Circle and holds vast, mostly untapped mineral deposits. Polls have consistently shown its residents overwhelmingly reject annexation by the United States, and Trump's earlier vows to take the island "one way or the other" drew warnings that such a move could break the NATO alliance. Even so, Greenland's government stayed at the table with Copenhagen and Washington, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, Trump's special envoy to the island, visited in May to press the administration's case.