Denmark Says US Exploration in Greenland Must Follow Local Law After Trump Touts a 'Massive' Oil and Mineral Push
Copenhagen's foreign ministry said last month's three-party deal grants no drilling or mining rights, answering a presidential post that said resource exploration was about to start.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026/2 min read
Denmark has told Washington that any American search for oil, gas or minerals in Greenland has to obey Greenland's laws. The foreign ministry in Copenhagen said on Wednesday that the agreement signed with the United States last month did not change the rules, after Donald Trump wrote that exploration was about to start, Al Jazeera reported with Reuters.
Trump posted on Truth Social that "Massive Oil, Gas, and Mineral Exploration is getting ready to begin." He gave no details of deals or projects, according to Reuters, as published by The Globe and Mail.
What does the Greenland agreement actually say?
The deal is a 10-page document signed on 22 September at the United Nations in New York by Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. It lets the United States modernise and expand its activities at Pituffik Space Base and paves the way for two new military bases and the Golden Dome missile defence system.
It reaffirms Danish sovereignty and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination. It grants no mining or drilling rights. Denmark's ministry added that it gives American investors no preferential treatment over investors from other NATO or EU countries.
Can the US drill for oil in Greenland?
Not easily. Greenland banned uranium mining and all future oil exploration in 2021. Its government is now reviewing whether Greenland Energy, a Texas company, can use permits issued before that ban. The company said in August it intended to drill for oil in 2027 in an untested basin on the east coast, but it does not hold its own permit yet.
Greenland's prime minister's office declined to comment, and its mineral resources ministry did not respond to Reuters.
The distinction matters because the deal is about bases and missile defence. Denmark's reading is that an arrangement over those is a different thing from a licence to extract resources, and that nothing in the text lets one stand in for the other.
How are analysts reading Trump's post?
Opinions split on what the deal changed. Danish security adviser Jacob Kaarsbo told Reuters it would be extremely dangerous to read the agreement as a sign that Trump's ambitions for Greenland had changed. Mikkel Olesen of the Danish Institute for International Studies said the rights to mining and exploration remain unclear and that information from the American side should be treated with caution. Richard Weitz of the NATO Defense College judged that Trump settled for less than annexation but still got nearly everything else he wanted, according to Al Jazeera.
The next marker is Greenland's own review of those older permits. If its government lets the Greenland Energy licences stand, the 2027 drilling plan stays alive. If it does not, the American oil push rests on a social media post and a prospect. Denmark has already said which reading it holds: the island's rules, written in Greenland, apply to everyone who comes to explore, including Washington's companies and investors.
Published in The Outspoken Digest
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