Election law writer Andy Craig says the Greenland agreement Trump announced is "literally the status quo"
Election-law analyst and editor at The UnPopulist, posting on his own Bluesky account
“This is literally the status quo. We've had exactly this for decades.”
Source and context
Original post
About this source
The speaker's own post, read on 2026-09-19 through Bluesky's public API (getPostThread: createdAt 2026-09-18T22:46:27.953Z, indexedAt 22:46:27.661Z, DID did:plc:73t3muu2pudsajp7a2fj3aly) and on the public bsky.app page, and compared character for character with the quotation. The post quotes journalist Aaron Rupar's post of 5:22 p.m. ET (bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mvt42eegvc27), whose image is a screenshot of Trump's Truth Social announcement; Craig's own reply 20 minutes later (next source) ties his remark to what Trump was describing. No archive copy was made in this research pass.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original post
About this source
Same account, read through the Bluesky public API on 2026-09-19 (createdAt 2026-09-18T23:06:19.515Z). Cited for the follow-up described in the context and to show what Craig's first post referred to; the quotation and label rest on the first post.
Original text
About this source
Read in full on the trumpstruth.org archive mirror, which shows the full text, the original post date (Friday, September 18, 2026, 05:18 pm EDT), the Truth Social status ID and the original URL https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/117294126158197822; truthsocial.com itself is Cloudflare-blocked and was not opened. The post says the United States “has entered into an Agreement,” whereas the Danish and Greenlandic release describes an expected agreement still to be signed. The identical text was posted on Trump’s X account (separate source). This page was captured by the mirror on September 19, 2026 at 11:51 AM EDT; the mirror’s later Truth Social entries through 12:52 PM EDT that day, including the transcript of a 1:06 AM video, do not mention Greenland.
Reporting
About this source
News report used only for the state of the record: no text of the agreement had been released, and Denmark and Greenland said in a joint statement that the three governments were expected to sign at the UN General Assembly the following week, subject to the necessary parliamentary procedures. Read 2026-09-19 at about 9:40 a.m. ET. NBC News (published 2026-09-18 22:37 UTC, modified 2026-09-19 08:15 UTC) also says the full text had not been released. The Danish Prime Minister's Office release of 2026-09-18 (english.stm.dk) carries the joint statement.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
At 5:18 p.m. ET on September 18, 2026, President Trump announced on Truth Social an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that, in his words, "gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland." Journalist Aaron Rupar posted an image of the announcement on Bluesky at 5:22 p.m. ET, and Craig quoted that post. The agreement had not been signed and its text had not been published.
After the quotation
About 20 minutes later, in a reply to his own post, Craig wrote that Denmark may have agreed to a minor cosmetic change or renewal but that what Trump was describing sounded very much like terms in place since the Truman administration. Denmark and Greenland said in a joint statement that the three governments were expected to sign the agreement at the UN General Assembly the following week; as of September 19, BBC reported that no text of the agreement had been released.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Trump’s “permanent control” description of the announced U.S.-Denmark-Greenland security agreement
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case's fixed reference point is President Trump's description, in his September 18 Truth Social post, of the unsigned and unpublished U.S.-Denmark-Greenland agreement as giving the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland. Craig, quoting a post that reproduces the announcement, says what it describes is "literally the status quo" and that "We've had exactly this for decades," and his reply twenty minutes later ties that to what Trump was describing, which disputes that the description reflects something new without praising or criticizing the agreement. The closest competing label is minimizes, because calling something the status quo also downplays its significance. That loses because the post contests what the arrangement is by placing it among arrangements already in place, rather than accepting a change and playing down its consequences.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Donald Trump
Trump’s “permanent control” description of the announced U.S.-Denmark-Greenland security agreement
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“I'm looking forward to the ink being dry on the new agreement with the USA. And to us being able to see the content. Until then, I'm skeptical. I don't have much confidence in Trump.”Read statement
“We will have to wait with that until the agreement is published next week. So I don't have many comments on that.”Read statement
“Next week could be a good week… For Greenland, Denmark and the USA alike. Where a long period of uncertainty is hopefully replaced by a binding agreement that strengthens security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic and thus also our shared security in NATO and Europe - with respect for the Kingdom's red lines.”Read statement