trump won't get control of greenland under new nato deal, foreign secretary confirms

The deal that led Donald Trump to cool down his threats to take over Greenland involves a new Nato operation in the Arctic,the Foreign Secretary has revealed.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4,Yvette Cooper said the creation of an ‘Arctic sentry’ has been proposed to maintain shared security in the vital region.

The plans would ensure Greenland and Denmark keep their sovereignty over the territory,she added.

If confirmed,the agreement would represent an extraordinary climbdown from the US President,who has previously insisted he would settle for nothing less than total control.

In his speech to the World Economic Forum yesterday afternoon,Trump said: ‘I have tremendous respect for the people of Denmark. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend its own territory.

‘The fact is,no nation or group of nations is no position to secure Greenland other than the United States.’

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Metro's senior politics reporter Craig Munro breaks down all the chaos into easy to follow insight,walking you through what the latest policies mean to you. Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.But hours later,he announced the ‘concept of a deal’ following a meeting with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.This morning,Cooper said: ‘What we have proposed is a work through Nato on a new Arctic sentry,which is similar to – we already have through Nato a Baltic sentry and an Eastern sentry.‘Those are really combined operations,programmes,that draw together Nato countries to work on a shared threat.’She also confirmed she was ‘not aware of any discussions’ that would lead to the US getting rights to the minerals beneath Greenland’s icy surface.Trump pivoted from his Greenland plans to the launch of his Board of Peace at Davos today (Picture: Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)Understandably,Donald Trump himself was keen to give the impression that the planned agreement was a massive victory for the US.In an interview with CNBC immediately after his Davos speech,the President referenced the ‘Golden Dome’ anti-missile system he wants to set up on the island.Speaking about the role of Denmark,he said: ‘They’re going to be involved in the Golden Dome,and they’re going to be involved in mineral rights. And so are we.’Asked about the time limit on US access to Greenland,Trump simply responded: ‘It’ll be forever.’He went further in another interview with Fox Business News today,saying: ‘I mean,we’re talking about,it’s really being negotiated now,the details of it,but essentially it’s total access.‘There’s no end,there’s no time limit.’Danish PM Mette Frederiksen with Keir Starmer at Chequers (Picture: Stefan Rousseau-WPA Pool/Getty Images)Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the UK had provided ‘very strong support’ to her country during ‘quite a difficult time’ in the past few weeks.Meeting Keir Starmer at the PM’s Chequers country residence,she channeled the Beatles,saying: ‘We’ve got to get by with a little help from our friends.’Frederiksen praised the ‘British way of doing things’,adding: ‘You are very pragmatic. You have a cup of tea and then you think a bit about everything.‘You get the facts on the table,and then you find a way forward,and that’s exactly what we’re doing now.’