Danish officials are calling this a diplomatic success, not a retreat and the signed text backs them up more than the "permanent US control" headlines suggested: no annexation, sovereignty and Greenlandic self-determination explicitly preserved, environmental and traditional-livelihood protections written in (inherited from the 2004 Igaliku Agreement, now strengthened), and for the first time Washington has put its name to a formal, if NATO-gated, path to Greenlandic independence. The episode argues Denmark got the substance of what Trump was threatening to take by force, without the coercion, and asks what that says about the real balance of leverage between a small, alliance-embedded state and an erratic superpower.
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