Danish politician who has been political leader of Radikale Venstre (the Danish Social Liberal Party) since 2022 and Minister for Business and Competitiveness since 3 June 2026. He previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs and as Minister for Climate, Energy and Building.
Case
Trump says a U.S.-Denmark-Greenland security agreement gives the United States permanent control over security in Greenland. Denmark and Greenland welcome an expected agreement; Denmark's prime minister cites sovereignty and self-determination. AP reports they did not confirm his specifics, and the text is unpublished.
Role at the time: Danish Minister for Business and Competitiveness and political leader of Radikale Venstre, in an on-camera interview with TV 2
Statement summary
Asked by TV 2 in a video interview what Trump's description of permanent U.S. control over security and all other needs in Greenland means, Danish Business and Competitiveness Minister Martin Lidegaard said that will have to wait until the agreement is published next week and that he had few comments on it. The quotation is DI's English translation of his Danish answer; TV 2's printed rendering of the answer is worded differently and worded differently.
“We will have to wait with that until the agreement is published next week. So I don't have many comments on that.”
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fixed reference point is President Trump's description, in his Truth Social post of 2026-09-18, of the not-yet-signed, unpublished U.S.-Denmark-Greenland agreement as giving the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland.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.
Statement dates: September 19, 2026
Statement dates: September 19, 2026
Statement dates: September 19, 2026
