The US plans to reopen a former Cold War-era military base in southern Greenland and set up a military presence at an east coast base now used by the Danish dog sled patrol under an agreement to be signed by the US, Denmark, and Greenland on Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The text of the agreement has not been made public, and the three people familiar with the deal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said its details are not finalized until it is signed.
Those sites are Narsarsuaq, whose population has dwindled to a few dozen people since the US closed its Bluie West One military base in the 1950s, and Mestersvig, a military outpost currently used by the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, a Danish special forces unit, said two of the people. Denmark says the agreement puts Arctic security under the watch of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military defense alliance, rather than leaving it solely to the US and Denmark. The deal follows months of pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has long said he wants the US to control Greenland and had at times refused to rule out military or economic force to acquire the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
