Jon Wolfsthal says Trump "could have just asked and gotten this result with less alliance damage"
Fellow for U.S. Nuclear Policy at PAX sapiens and former National Security Council senior director for arms control and nonproliferation, posting on his own Bluesky account
“He could have just asked and gotten this result with less alliance damage.”
Source and context
Original post
About this source
The speaker's own words, read verbatim from the Bluesky public API (getPostThread) and the bsky.app page's og:description, and matching a Wayback capture taken 2026-09-18 23:53:13 UTC. The post embeds a New York Times Bluesky post, whose words are the Times's, not Wolfsthal's; 'He' is read as Trump because the quoted post reports Trump's announcement. The post has no other text.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original post
About this source
The post Wolfsthal quoted, read through the Bluesky API as embedded in his post. Its link card (nyti.ms/4ArK4fA, which resolves to nytimes.com/2026/09/18/us/politics/trump-greenland.html) was not opened because nytimes.com returned a bot-protection 403 that was not bypassed. Used only to show what Wolfsthal was responding to.
Before the quotation
The New York Times posted breaking news at 7:00 PM EDT on 2026-09-18 that President Trump said the U.S. had reached a security deal with Greenland and that Denmark said an agreement would be signed soon. Earlier that evening Trump's Truth Social post had described the agreement as giving the United States "permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland."
After the quotation
Wolfsthal's post quote-posts the Times's breaking-news post about the announcement.
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The case's fixed reference point is Trump's Truth Social post of 2026-09-18 describing the not-yet-signed, unpublished agreement as giving the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland. Wolfsthal's own words say Trump "could have just asked" to get "this result", which treats the announced outcome as easily obtained and so downplays its significance, and add that the approach cost the alliance more than necessary; he does not say what the agreement contains or dispute Trump's description of it. The closest competing label is condemns, because "alliance damage" is critical. That loses because the criticism is aimed at the route Trump took to the result, not at the agreement or at Trump's description of it.
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- 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
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“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