After President Donald Trump withdrew his tariff threat against Denmark and other European states and announced an agreement, the first details began to emerge. Sources close to NATO said that Prime Minister Rutte had proposed a plan that would not only establish a new NATO monitoring mission in the high north but also transfer the control of U.S. military bases in Greenland to Washington, according to a report in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
Similar ideas appear to have existed earlier. Two NATO insiders confirmed that the plan is modeled after the British military installations in Cyprus. In that case, the U.K. government maintains two air‑force bases-Akrotiri and Dhekelia-which are part of British sovereign territory. These areas remained under U.K. control when Cyprus gained independence in 1960, and their status is set out in the treaty that created the Republic of Cyprus. The bases are held as British overseas territories, governed by the U.K. Ministry of Defence, and are permitted to be used solely for military purposes; they cannot be exploited for economic gain and are not a separate state.
Today the United States has only one base in Greenland, the Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base, which falls under U.S. Space Command. During the Cold War Washington operated a total of 17 bases on the island. Both the Danish government in Copenhagen and the Greenlandic authorities in Nuuk have expressed openness to the U.S. increasing its military presence. Under a 2004 agreement, such a move could be carried out without difficulty.
