After a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement that a framework agreement regarding Greenland is in place.

"It's a deal that people jumped at," Trump told reporters. "Really fantastic for the USA; gets everything we wanted, including and especially real national security."

"The first thing we'll do is work together with the seven neighboring countries in the region — the U.S., Canada and five European nations, including Denmark, due to Greenland — to ensure better defense of the Arctic region as NATO. The second step will be continued negotiations between the U.S., Greenland and Denmark. These will focus on one clear issue: how to prevent Russia and China from ever gaining economic access to Greenland and how to avoid their military development there," NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said.

Estonia's Ambassador to NATO, Jüri Luik, noted that every secretary general defines the job a bit differently. Mark Rutte, he said, has found common ground with Trump.

"Of course, when tensions or disagreements arise between allies, he tries to resolve them, but he can't do it publicly. He generally doesn't talk about such things to the press because we're dealing with allies. In that sense, he has to be very delicate," Luik said.

That delicacy may help prevent disputes from escalating on social media, but it also means that very little is known about the content of the framework agreement, apart from the fact that it outlines two parallel paths forward. Within NATO, the thinking is likely along the lines of previously organized operations on the alliance's eastern flank, such as Baltic Watch and Eastern Sentinel.

"In short, this means that NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe or SACEUR takes the resources available in the region and coordinates them in a way that improves situational awareness. We see what's going on. We can also track and follow ships or aircraft that appear suspicious. In principle, a similar operation could be established in the Arctic. There's talk it might even be called Arctic Sentinel," Luik explained.

If NATO headquarters makes such a decision, it would signal that the Greenland dispute has been truly resolved. But that may still take time, Luik said.

"I don't think anyone is rushing just for the sake of speed. The aim is for the two processes — the trilateral one between the Danes, Greenlanders and Americans and the NATO process — to proceed more or less in parallel, forming a single solution to this problem that has flared up so sharply," Estonia's NATO ambassador said.

Even if recent weeks were extremely tense, talk of NATO's demise seemed like an overstatement from the perspective of NATO headquarters.

"I can clearly see the U.S. attitude toward NATO. All the generals and diplomats here... there is absolutely no sense of NATO being on the verge of a major crisis," Luik said.

Still, while the dispute within NATO may not have been as serious as it appeared from the outside, tensions escalated after Trump threatened tariffs. Trade relations with the U.S. fall under the European Union, not NATO. Although many European countries are members of both organizations, the conclusions reached were somewhat different. Within NATO, Secretary General Mark Rutte proved he could resolve disagreements among allies. At the EU summit, however, national leaders concluded that Europe must be prepared to push back on U.S. pressure in trade matters.

"Probably the reason the threats of crisis were taken off the table is that Europe's responses would have been quite painful for the other side as well," said Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal.

"We are strong when we are united and we definitely sent a signal to America," said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas.

The meeting originally convened to discuss a response to U.S. tariffs evolved into a broader conversation on how to manage relations with a temperamental ally.

"There is one lesson we should take from the U.S. national security strategy: Europe needs to be more self-confident in its relations with Russia, with China and also, frankly, with its allies," Kallas said.

Kallas acknowledged that the trade deal signed with the U.S. over the summer was not ideal, but said it was important for Europe as long as it gives businesses certainty. In other words, Europe expects the U.S. to honor its commitments.

"That's what we ask of our allies and everyone we sign agreements with," Kallas said.

That doesn't mean Europe is looking for a fight. Most national leaders emphasized that the U.S. is an ally with whom they want friendly relations. But if tariff threats continue, Europe's willingness to impose countermeasures is growing.

"There's a shared understanding that we don't want escalation. But if steps are taken that aren't in Europe's interests or violate our values-based policies — including, for example, the independence of Denmark and Greenland — then we are both capable and ready to respond," Michal said.

The Greenland dispute may not be over yet, but hopefully the most heated phase has passed.

"Diplomats are once again on familiar ground, back on their home field and can focus on solving these issues — hopefully without all the drama," said Luik.

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