Category: Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump has signed an agreement with Denmark and Greenland aimed at strengthening Arctic and North Atlantic security, easing tensions over his repeated calls for Greenland to become part of the United States.

The signing Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York comes days after Trump announced the deal to bolster U.S. military presence on the vast, icy island but keep it under Danish control. The governments provided few details of the agreement before the signing.

“This is tremendous for Europe and for the United States and for everybody,” Trump said just before the agreement was signed. “And for Greenland, it’s going to be incredible.”

For months, Trump has expressed his desire for Greenland to become part of the United States and issued threats to seize the semiautonomous territory from Denmark, a NATO ally. On Tuesday, he did not respond to questions about whether a U.S. acquisition of Greenland was off the table.

U.S. has had a presence in Greenland for many years

Officials from the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark negotiated for months behind the scenes, searching for solutions to address some of Trump’s security concerns about the mineral-rich island.

Trump’s designs on Greenland strained relations within NATO, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warning a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of the Atlantic alliance.

The standoff unsettled many of Greenland’s roughly 56,000 people and drove a wedge between the U.S. and Denmark and its European Union partners, who stepped up security exercises on and monetary support for the island.

Trade and hopes for a resource grab have all factored into concerns about Greenland’s future: About two-thirds of its territory sits inside the Arctic Circle, where melting sea ice has opened additional shipping routes

The United States was prominent in Greenland for decades but, since 1945, the U.S. military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers on 17 bases and installations to roughly 200 soldiers on the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest. The base supports missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning, Trump provided a small window into details of the deal.

“We will immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence in the appropriate locations,” he said, including “building two very major military bases.”

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last year to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil, widening a 2023 military agreement made with the Biden administration that gave U.S. troops broad access to air bases in Denmark.

Trump previously insisted the U.S. needed to “take Greenland,” to prevent Russia or China from doing the same. Though Trump said he would rather “make a deal” for the territory, he added: “one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”

All parties present the agreement as a positive move

Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies, said Greenland and Denmark come away from the deal with the possibility of “ending the crisis without compromising on sovereignty,” while the U.S. gets a “somewhat more favorable” deal than under the existing defense treaty.

But relations overall between the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland “are likely to be haunted by this long after Trump leaves office, and the crisis is likely to have significant and lasting negative impact on trans-Atlantic relations more generally,” he said. “The lost trust will take decades to rebuild.”

Frederiksen said Tuesday that the deal being signed was a “deal that can last forever,” labeling it as good for the U.S., Greenland, Denmark, and the broader NATO alliance.

“Mr. President, you have been very clear: You don’t want adversaries to come too close,” she said. “I fully agree.”

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, called it “a win-win-win agreement.”

“Your security is our security, and our security is your security,” he said Tuesday.

The Venezuelan man shot by an immigration officer in Austin over the weekend was taken to a hospital late Monday after experiencing paralysis on the left side of his body, his lawyer said.

Attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch also has filed a lawsuit in Texas asking a federal court to order the immediate release of Wilber Garcés Pérez from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and halt his potential deportation to Venezuela. U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia scheduled an in-person hearing for Sept. 30 and ordered that Garcés be present, according to court records.

Garcés had been transferred from a local hospital to a federal detention facility four hours after he was shot by an ICE officer on Sunday, despite having a bullet still lodged in his back, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said doctors chose not to remove it because the bullet was too close to his spine but argued it was reckless to release him from the hospital that quickly.

Garcés, a 28-year-old delivery driver, told reporters on Monday by cell phone that he remained in pain and had spent the night sleeping on the floor in the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles southwest of Austin. His attorney said on social media that he was taken to another hospital late Monday after complaining of paralysis.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D., Texas) said Tuesday that Garcés had been discharged and returned to the Pearsall facility. Castro said he and another lawmaker plan to visit Garcés on Wednesday to demand his release.

“It is nothing more than a prison,” he said of the detention facility. “None of this should have ever happened.”

Department of Homeland Security officials have not responded to questions about the shooting or the claims from Garcés and Lincoln-Goldfinch about his medical care and the events that led to the shooting. Earlier Monday, DHS said Garcés was in stable condition and in federal custody “pending removal” from the country. The agency said he is subject to a final deportation order.

Garcés’s supporters are calling on DHS to release any video footage of the incident and are demanding an independent investigation.

Garcés worked as a DoorDash driver and was making a delivery Sunday when an unmarked black truck operated by ICE sideswiped his car, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. After he attempted to make a U-turn to find a place to pull over, the ICE vehicle struck his car again before an officer shot him, she said.

Lincoln-Goldfinch has said that Garcés is the main provider for his young family. He has a young son with a disability and is responsible for the costs of his treatments.

In the lawsuit seeking his release, Lincoln-Goldfinch and attorney Kristin Etter argued that Garcés should be allowed to apply for a U visa for crime victims because he is a “victim of a violent crime, namely, being shot by a federal officer.” Deporting him would violate his constitutional right to due process, the attorneys said.

Congress members and his attorneys have also expressed fear for Garcés’ health in the ICE detention facility, alleging he may need surgery and requires further evaluation.

Garcés alleges that an ICE officer shot him in the torso at 12:56 p.m. on Sunday, in an intersection in Austin, according to court records his attorneys filed on his behalf. Hours later, he was discharged to ICE custody, his attorneys wrote, “with the bullet still lodged in his body.”

He was then “forced to sleep on a cement floor” until around 4 a.m. Monday, when ICE transported him to the Pearsall facility, according to the records.

After he spoke to the media that day, ICE revoked Garcés’s communication privileges and moved him from the infirmary into “an isolated room with a flat, nonadjustable bed,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said in a statement.

Around 5 p.m. Monday, she said Garcés became unable to move his left arm and was taken back to the hospital. During the transfer, she said ICE handled him “roughly, despite his gunshot injury,” placing him in handcuffs and shackling his ankles.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment about those claims.

Lincoln-Goldfinch said that the gunshot fractured Garcés’s clavicle and that he is suffering “significant swelling and pain,” and wearing a sling. At the hospital, she said, doctors gave him intravenous morphine for pain.

Garcés entered the country legally seeking asylum, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. An immigration judge issued him a final removal order after he missed a hearing. Lincoln-Goldfinch said officials sent a notice advising him of his upcoming court date to an old address.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that more than 100 Democratic lawmakers are calling on Homeland Security officials to cease any efforts to interfere with a comprehensive investigation into the shooting.

The lawmakers said in their letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE Director David Venturella they are deeply concerned ICE is attempting to swiftly deport Garcéss to impede an independent investigation.

“Mr. Garcés Perez is a key witness to this shooting, and given ICE’s history of obscuring the facts in similar investigations, he must not be removed,” the lawmakers wrote.

They said Garcés and the ICE agent who shot him must remain in Texas until a thorough investigation is complete.

The Democratic lawmakers called on DHS officials to respond by next Monday on why agents used deadly force, whether they followed policy requiring them to render medical aid, and whether ICE will release all bodycam footage.

MIAMI — A former Haitian government official and more than a dozen other people appeared Monday in federal court in Miami on charges related to the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

Joseph Badio, a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee, was brought into the Florida court in a wheelchair. The hearing happened a day after he and 17 others described as Colombian mercenaries were flown to the United States from Haiti, where they had been in custody.

They’re among 30 people charged in the indictment, including Christian Sanon, a Palm Beach County, Fla., resident and dual Haitian-American citizen who was already preparing to face trial next week. Authorities said he aspired to be Haiti’s president.

South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing, U.S. authorities have alleged. At least nine people so far have been convicted at trial or through guilty pleas.

Moïse was “assassinated by individuals seeking to profit from illicit financial opportunities and business contracts,” U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones said.

Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, most from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince.

In 2025, justice officials in Haiti asked the U.S. and Canada for help after a local court of appeals ordered a new investigation into Moïse’s killing, the third inquiry of its kind since he was shot 12 times at his private residence. His wife, Martine, also was injured in the attack.

The previous investigations were stalled because Haitian judges kept resigning from the case, fearing for their lives, and gangs seized control of the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse where the judges were interrogating suspects.

Any proceedings in Haiti “continue to face significant difficulties,” the Ministry of Justice and Public Security said Sunday.

The indictment says Badio, who is charged with conspiracy, posed as a U.S. drug agent and participated in Moïse’s killing. A lawyer appointed to temporarily represent him could not immediately be reached for comment.

Badio once worked in the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations weeks before the assassination.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid assigned lawyers and set additional court dates during a series of brief dialogues with each of the 18 defendants.

The scheme to kill Moïse included paying mercenaries with money obtained from U.S. government programs that were intended to help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the indictment says.

Haiti has not had a president in the five years since Moïse’s death. It has instead been overwhelmed by gang violence: More than 3,000 people were killed this year by June and about 1.5 million people were displaced, according to the U.N.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch officials are preparing for the United States to impose a tough new round of sanctions on the International Criminal Court as it seeks to dismantle the global tribunal over what the Trump administration sees as overstepping its authority.

Officials in the court’s host country, the Netherlands, have been notified that the sanctions are imminent and are looking at ways to help the tribunal keep operating, including paying staff, protecting witnesses, and maintaining the detention facility, diplomatic and government officials with knowledge of the briefings told the Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Washington has already sanctioned more than a dozen current and former staff members, including half of the court’s sitting judges, in what U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described as a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court.”

The U.S. and Israel have strongly objected to the court’s arrest warrants for top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the war in Gaza. The U.S. also has opposed investigations into its military actions in Afghanistan.

Like Russia, China, India, and Israel, the United States is among countries that have never joined the panel, with Washington citing fears of politically motivated prosecutions of its military. The court currently has 125 member states.

The sanctions could prevent the court from accessing financial and IT services, and even paying its U.S. employees. When the court’s former chief prosecutor was sanctioned in 2025, he lost access to his Microsoft email, his bank accounts were frozen, and he was barred from entering the United States.

According to two sources familiar with the situation, U.S. officials warned their Dutch counterparts that sanctions would be levied as early as Monday and encouraged the court’s host state to withdraw from the institution.

Two U.S. officials told the AP that more ICC sanctions may be coming, but stressed that the scale and scope of the penalties had not yet been finalized and that no announcement is expected this week. The officials were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The ICC was established in the Hague in 2002 as the court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. It takes on cases when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute crimes on their territory.

U.S. officials did not immediately reply to a request for comment. “The Trump Administration has been clear: the International Criminal Court is a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement when announcing sanctions on the court president last month. “We will not tolerate its assault on state sovereignty.”

The ICC has been preparing for months for the possibility of sanctions. Earlier this year, the court migrated off Microsoft products onto a German software provider, according to three ICC staff members who were not authorized to speak on the record. The tribunal has also changed insurance and other financial providers to companies without a footprint in the United States, they said.

Dutch and court officials are hoping for a six-month grace period before the sanctions come into effect, arguing that the institution needs time to sever itself from American companies, which could face huge financial penalties if they are found to be in violation.

Beyond migrating to European-based alternatives, the Netherlands and the European Union have few options to protect the institution.

The EU “blocking statute” can be used to protect European court staff by preventing European companies from complying with the U.S. measures, though it’s unclear whether the statute would shield the ICC itself, because it’s an international body, not a European one. EU citizens are entitled to a basic bank account, but that doesn’t provide access to credit cards or U.S. payment facilities.

A small but growing number of the global tribunal’s member states have announced plans to leave the institution in recent months, including Venezuela and Chad.

Chad specifically cited the United States in its decision to withdraw. Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul said in a statement that during a phone call with a U.S. official in July, “the American side expressed its concerns regarding the functioning of this institution and requested that Chad reconsider” its membership.