Orla Joelsen says the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland agreement appears to remain within the 1951 Defence Agreement
Greenlandic social-media commentator and candidate for Atassut in the March 2026 Folketing election, on his personal X account
“I believe the new agreement between Greenland, Denmark and the United States appears to remain within the framework of the 1951 Defence Agreement. It strengthens U.S. security cooperation in Greenland, but it does not transfer sovereignty over, or ownership of, Greenland to the United States.”
Source and context
Original post
About this source
Joelsen's own post on X (@OJoelsen), read through fxtwitter (https://api.fxtwitter.com/OJoelsen/status/2101086241961972191) and through the X timeline endpoint (fxtwitter /2/profile/OJoelsen/statuses); created_at Fri Sep 18 23:09:31 +0000 2026 (7:09 PM EDT), Snowflake ID decoded to 2026-09-18T23:09:31.035Z. The post is a long-form note post, not a reply or quote. He hedges the reading ("I believe", "appears to"), consistent with the text being unpublished. Not archived: Wayback Machine lookups were throttled and x.com is not captured.
Original post
About this source
His later post, cited only for what followed. Read through fxtwitter; see the assigned-post event in this file.
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
Danish-language DR item of 2026-03-05, opened directly. Translation: "The Greenlandic internet warrior Orla Joelsen is running for the Folketing for the party Atassut. He tells DR." The next sentence says he has organized large demonstrations against Donald Trump in several Greenlandic towns. Used only to document the candidacy for the speaker capacity; the Danish Wikipedia page on the 2026 Folketing election in Greenland lists him among the Atassut candidates.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)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." Later that day, the Danish Prime Minister's Office and the Government of Greenland issued a joint press release describing an agreement the three governments expected to sign at the UN General Assembly the following week.
After the quotation
At 10:27 p.m. EDT he posted that "Our fight against Trump’s ambition to take over Greenland has been won." 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. Joelsen says the agreement appears to remain within the 1951 Defence Agreement framework and strengthens U.S. security cooperation without transferring sovereignty or ownership, which disputes how the deal is described without condemning or endorsing it. The closest competing label is minimizes, because staying within an existing framework would also mean limited change. That loses because the post makes a claim about what the agreement is, not about how significant its consequences are.
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- Published here
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