Martin Lidegaard, asked what Trump's 'permanent control' wording means, says it must wait until the text is published
Danish Minister for Business and Competitiveness and political leader of Radikale Venstre, in an on-camera interview with TV 2
“We will have to wait with that until the agreement is published next week. So I don't have many comments on that.”
Source and context
Interview
About this source
Entry in TV 2's live blog (the blog dates from 2025-01-06, so each entry has its own timestamp). The entry embeds an 89.8-second TV 2 video interview; the on-screen caption reads 'Martin Lidegaard, Erhvervs- og konkurrencekraft minister, Radikale Venstre'. Direct MP4 listed in the page's JSON-LD: https://bc-prod-vod.tv2s.dk/media/v1/pmp4/static/clear/6293768613001/49e1eec7-4a4d-480b-adea-deb72a1adeb9/b0294173-06d4-46c0-9103-e5f77c5673df/main.mp4 . The quotation follows the AUDIO, not TV 2's printed text, and is DI's English translation. Original Danish of the quoted span (spelling normalised): 'det må vi vente til aftalen bliver offentliggjort i næste uge. Så det har jeg ikke så mange kommentarer til.' It is the tail of a longer answer that begins at 01:13 ('Du får mig ikke ... ud i nærmere detaljer eller indhold på aftalen ...'); the opening words are not quoted because the models decode two of them inconsistently (a short word rendered 'nok' where TV 2 prints 'lokket', and three different renderings of the word for 'curiosity'). TV 2's printed line reads 'Du får mig ikke lokket ud i flere detaljer, det må vente til næste uge, så det har jeg ikke så mange kommentarer til.', a condensation, not a transcript. The question put to him, in the audio at 01:01-01:12, is TV 2's: according to Donald Trump the agreement gives the USA permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland, 'Hvad betyder det?'. Audio transcribed locally with mlx-whisper (large-v3-turbo, large-v3, medium); two strong models agree on the quoted span.
Reporting
About this source
Context source for contextAfter, not a source of the quotation. TV 2 reports that at Radikale Venstre's national congress he repeated he was glad, and that although he had read the agreement he would not say more. The entry's video (transcribed locally, Whisper only) has him say he has read the agreement, calls it a good agreement, says it is somewhat secret until signed and that the Prime Minister should be allowed to say more, and answers a question on what increased military presence means with 'Det kan jeg desværre ikke'.
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.
Official statement
About this source
Context source for contextBefore, not a source of the quotation. Official English version of the joint release; opened and read, and the Danish original on stm.dk was opened as well.
Reporting
About this source
Context source for contextAfter, not a source of the quotation. AP text as syndicated by WRAL (published 09:38 UTC, updated 13:28 UTC on 2026-09-19).
Before the quotation
On the evening of 18 September 2026 (U.S. Eastern time), President Trump announced on Truth Social an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that he said gives the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland, and a joint release from the Danish Prime Minister's Office and the Government of Greenland said the three governments were expected to sign an agreement the following week. In the interview, TV 2 put Trump's description to Lidegaard as a question after he had said he was very glad about the agreement.
After the quotation
About five hours later, TV 2 reported that at his party's national congress he repeated that he was glad and, although he had read the agreement, would not say more, saying it is somewhat secret until it is signed and that the Prime Minister should be allowed to say more. AP reported that the agreement had not yet been made public.
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 Truth Social post of 2026-09-18, of the not-yet-signed, unpublished U.S.-Denmark-Greenland agreement as giving the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland. Asked directly what that description means, Lidegaard answered that it would have to wait until the agreement is published next week and that he had few comments on it, so in this answer he neither endorses nor disputes the description and closes discussion of it. The closest competing label is challenges_characterization, because declining to interpret Trump's wording could be read as distancing from it. That loses because he does not dispute the wording or offer a different description; he only defers the question to the published text.
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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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“An important and positive piece of news for Greenland, Denmark and our shared security. Greenland, Denmark and the USA are on their way toward an agreement that is to strengthen security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic. For me it is absolutely crucial that the agreement recognises the Kingdom's sovereignty and Greenlanders' right to decide their own future. These are fundamental principles that we must stand firm on.”Read statement