Dan Nexon writes a three-step account of Trump being handed the 1951 Defense Agreement under a new name
Professor in Georgetown University's Department of Government and School of Foreign Service, on his personal Bluesky account
“Step 1: Slip Trump a copy of the 1951 Defense Agreement, but with the name changed. Step 2: Describe it in the most favorable light possible, since he won't read it anyway. Step 3: Trump goes on "Truth Social" and proclaims himself a genius negotiator.”
Source and context
Original post
About this source
Nexon's own Bluesky post (@dhnexon.net, DID did:plc:uvia34usrnxja3i55zafiyeg), a quote-post of Aaron Rupar's post (https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mvt42eegvc27, 5:22 PM EDT), which carries a screenshot of Trump's Truth Social announcement and one quoted line of it. Read through the public Bluesky API (com.atproto.identity.resolveHandle, app.bsky.feed.getPostThread): record.createdAt 2026-09-18T21:31:44.506Z = 5:31 PM EDT. The quotation is the text field of Nexon's own record; the quoted post's words are Rupar's and Trump's, not Nexon's. The post is written as a sarcastic three-step scenario. Bluesky posts cannot be edited. Not archived: Wayback Machine lookups were throttled (HTTP 429) and Bluesky pages are client-rendered.
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
Official English version of the joint press release, dated 9/18/2026 (no time shown on the page). The Prime Minister's Office announced it on X at 2026-09-18 21:37:58 UTC (5:37 PM EDT; https://x.com/Statsmin/status/2101063203862057308, timestamp decoded from the post ID and confirmed through fxtwitter). Danish original: https://stm.dk/presse/pressemeddelelser/forventet-aftale-om-styrket-sikkerhed-i-arktis-og-det-nordatlantiske-omraade/ , where the Frederiksen quotation reads "udsigt til en god aftale" (the prospect of a good agreement) whereas the English version says "a great agreement". The release describes an expected agreement; it does not publish the text.
Reporting
About this source
AP wire report as carried by ABC News, published 2026-09-19 5:37 AM EDT (09:37 UTC), last modified 16:10 UTC. Opened in full. Used only for two context facts: the agreement text was not public, and the U.S. and Denmark already had a long-standing security agreement (AP's wording for the 1951 Defense of Greenland accord). The same AP text is carried by CBS News (cbsnews.com/news/denmark-greenland-leaders-us-security-deal-trump/). A news search on 2026-09-19 found no report that the text had been published since.
Before the quotation
At 5:18 p.m. EDT on September 18, 2026, President Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States had entered an agreement with Denmark and Greenland "that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland." Nexon's post quoted a Bluesky post by journalist Aaron Rupar that reproduced Trump's announcement as an image.
After the quotation
Later that day, the Danish Prime Minister's Office and the Government of Greenland issued a joint press release saying the three governments expected to sign an agreement at the UN General Assembly the following week, after which it would enter into force subject to the necessary national parliamentary procedures. The Associated Press reported on September 19 that the agreement's text had not 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 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. Nexon's post, written in response to that announcement, presents the agreement as the 1951 Defense Agreement under a changed name that Trump then announces as a negotiating success, which disputes how the deal is described without criticizing or endorsing the agreement itself. The closest competing label is minimizes, because an existing agreement renamed would also mean little has changed. That loses because the post makes a claim about what the agreement is and how it was described to Trump, not about how serious its consequences would be.
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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
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