Who Gets to Stay in Narsarsuaq

The Question From the Airport

Mara: The really big question, Storch Lund told Greenland's public broadcaster in July, is what demands will be placed on the people who live in his town if the Americans set up a military base there. Lund has worked for many years as a mechanic and manager at the airport in Narsarsuaq, in southern Greenland. He was speaking Danish, as are most of the people in this story, so we'll put their words into English.

Eli: A question from July. And this week it stopped being hypothetical.

Mara: On Tuesday, September 22nd, at United Nations headquarters in New York, President Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen signed an agreement. It permits the United States an additional defense area at two places in Greenland: Narsarsuaq, and a site called Mestersvig.

Eli: So one of the two places named in a document signed in New York is the town where Lund works at the airport.

Mara: And it's a small town. Narsarsuaq is a settlement of a few dozen people near the southern tip of Greenland. It's Friday, September 25th, and today's angle is what an American base would ask of Narsarsuaq.

Eli: Lund didn't stop at the question. He told the broadcaster the demands could become so extensive that the people there would ultimately have to leave their homes.

Mara: His town is now on the page. The question is whether his answer is.

Eli: By the end we'll know how much of his question the paper answers, and who's left holding the rest.

A Museum to the Last Base

Mara: The Americans have been in Narsarsuaq before. The town is the site of a former US base called Bluie West One, which the United States closed in the 1950s. Defense News, a publication that covers the military, reported that the population has dwindled to a few dozen people since then.

Eli: Bluie West One. It sounds less like a military base and more like a shade of paint.

Mara: And the base didn't just disappear. KNR, the public broadcaster Lund spoke to, reported that the old American base in Narsarsuaq is now a museum.

Eli: There's a dry joke in there. The last time the US military settled in, it ended up as an exhibit. And now the country that left is permitted to come back to the same town.

Mara: It's funny for about a second, and then it's uneasy. Because that museum is also somebody's living.

Eli: The man who runs it is Ole Guldager. He operates the museum in Narsarsuaq, and he said the problem, for him, is whether he can keep living in his house and running his business.

Mara: His house and his livelihood, in one breath.

Eli: And the livelihood depends on visitors. He said the business side is also a bit important, because they work with tourists who visit the museum and buy things in their souvenir shop. If tourists can't come, he said, their business is more or less finished.

Mara: A bit important, he calls it, while describing the possible end of his business.

Eli: The man who keeps the memory of the last American base is the one wondering what the next one means for him.

Visitors on the Runway

Mara: Lund's fear, that the demands could end up pushing people out of their homes, wasn't his alone. KNR reported that residents of the settlement feared that if an American base came, they would have to move.

Eli: Others in town put it as a request. Another Narsarsuaq voice, Niviaaluk Lund Amondsen, said she was worried about whether people would be allowed to stay living there if American soldiers came, or whether they would be forced away. If it's the Americans, she said, that is something that must be clarified.

Mara: She was asking for the terms.

Eli: Which is supposed to be exactly what a signed agreement delivers.

Mara: Meanwhile, the Americans were already looking around. KNR reported that people from the US military visited Narsarsuaq several times and looked over the settlement and its runway, the runway at the airport where Lund has worked for years.

Eli: Looking over a runway is a long way from building a base, though.

Mara: Sure. But put it next to a post from Trump: "We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many."

Eli: Of which there are many. Many appropriate parts, and not a word about which.

Mara: Not until Tuesday.

Named in New York

Eli: The document from New York is dated the 22nd of September, 2026, written in English, Danish and Greenlandic. The line that matters for Narsarsuaq reads: "The United States shall be allowed to establish an additional Defense Area at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig in accordance with modalities and technical details to be mutually agreed by the Parties."

Mara: So the town's name is in the treaty. And right behind it: modalities and technical details, to be mutually agreed.

Eli: Right. The text permits a defense area there and leaves the terms to be worked out. It doesn't say a base has been built.

Mara: Trump didn't sound like a man waiting on technical details. KNR reported that in his speech to the UN that Tuesday, he said the United States would quickly start building two large military bases in Greenland.

Eli: His post had promised to begin immediately, and added: "We will work with the people of Greenland in its development and construction."

Mara: Speed at the podium, blanks in the text.

Eli: Nielsen described those blanks himself. Comparing the new deal with the original defense agreement from 1951, he said what separates them is how, and exactly in what way, the bases are to be set up, along with other matters the three countries have to agree on.

Mara: So what's new about this agreement is precisely the part nobody has agreed yet.

Eli: And that's where Lund's question lives. He asked what demands a base would place on the people who live there. Those demands sit inside the words "to be mutually agreed."

Mara: The town got named. The conditions didn't.

Eli: Greenland's leaders tried to fill some of that space the same day. Nielsen told KNR he wanted to stress, and that it was important to him, that if a military base is established in Narsarsuaq, it must not have negative consequences for the community close to the base, for example Qassiarsuk and other places.

Mara: Qassiarsuk being one of the nearby communities. And on the exact fear Lund raised, Nielsen said there would be no forced relocations.

Eli: Greenland's foreign minister, Múte B. Egede, went further. He said that if a base is to be established, Greenlanders will be asked. And if it is to be in an inhabited area, he said, Greenlanders will naturally demand that the people who live there be able to stay.

Mara: That's about as direct a reply to Lund and Amondsen as you could hope for. Nielsen also said future bases must follow Greenlandic environmental law.

Eli: These are statements to reporters, not lines in the agreement.

Mara: Nielsen said trust at home needed restoring. Greenland has had close cooperation with the US over time, he said, but trust has to be rebuilt at home on the street, and that will take time.

The Fine Print With No End Date

Eli: So what does the paper itself commit to? The parties write that they share the goal of "maximizing real, tangible, and substantial benefits to the People of Greenland from the Defense Areas."

Mara: And there's a jobs clause. Contracts for building, maintaining, servicing, even dismantling defense areas go "to Greenlandic sources to the maximum extent possible, taking into account the capabilities and feasibility of such sources to implement contracts."

Eli: Plus a respect clause. American rights "must be exercised in a manner that respects the Greenlandic society and the Greenlandic way of life, including hunting, fishing," and other activities, "to the maximum extent possible."

Mara: To the maximum extent possible, twice. Generous words. Also flexible ones.

Eli: Then comes the reach. US forces, vessels, aircraft and vehicles get "the right of free access to and movement between the Defense Areas through Greenland, including the Territorial Waters, by land, air and sea."

Mara: So not just inside a fence at one site. Across the country and its waters.

Eli: Now hold Trump's post up to all this. He promised a large presence, starting immediately. The text allows an additional defense area at two named sites, on terms nobody has settled yet. Where it reaches furthest is time. One short sentence: "This Agreement does not have an end date."

Mara: Narsarsuaq knows a base can close. This agreement has no closing date written in.

Eli: In fairness, this isn't a brand-new door. In a 2004 agreement, the parties wrote: "Thule Air Base is the only defense area in Greenland." But they kept the 1951 rules for establishing new defense areas.

Mara: So the door already existed. This deal walks through it and writes Narsarsuaq on the frame.

Eli: What it leaves out is the old bases. KNR reported there's nothing about them in the new agreement.

Mara: Nielsen called cleanup a separate track: a dialogue between the countries that has been running for some time, and one he said should keep going.

Eli: A town whose old base is now a museum might notice that silence.

Back to Lund's Question

Mara: Storch Lund asked in July what demands a base would place on the people who live in Narsarsuaq. The signed text now permits an American defense area in his town. It promises contracts for Greenlandic firms where possible and respect for Greenlandic society, lets US forces move freely between defense areas, and has no end date.

Eli: And Nielsen's pledge of no forced relocations, and Egede's promise that Greenlanders will be asked, are on the record.

Mara: What those modalities and technical details will mean for Narsarsuaq remains to be agreed.

Eli: And nothing takes effect until Denmark, together with Greenland, completes its parliamentary procedures. Nielsen said the agreement should be discussed as soon as possible in Inatsisartut, Greenland's parliament.

Mara: So Lund's question is still open. The text permits a defense area at Narsarsuaq, but leaves its terms to be agreed.

Eli: Trump promised a large presence "in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many."

Mara: From Washington, Narsarsuaq is one option among many. For Lund, it's home, the place where he said the demands could grow until people have to leave.

Eli: A few dozen people, the runway, a museum to the last base. The strategy was signed in New York. Who gets to stay is the part Narsarsuaq will live with.

Mara: If this one stayed with you, dig into the US security deal with Greenland and keep watching Narsarsuaq.

Eli: And follow Donald Trump; we have more episodes on him, so you'll be ready when the next story breaks.

Mara: That's it for today. I'm Mara.

Eli: And I'm Eli. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time on Angle.