By Josh Boak and David Keyton
US Vice President J.D. Vance will join his wife on her trip to Greenland, suggesting in an online video that global security is at stake.
“We’re going to check out how things are going there,” Vance said in a post on Tuesday (Washington time). “Speaking for President [Donald] Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world.”
US Vice President J.D. Vance and second lady Usha Vance with their children in Munich, Germany, in February.Credit: AP
Trump irked much of Europe by suggesting his country should in some form control the self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark. As the nautical gateway to the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America, Greenland has broader strategic value, as both China and Russia also seek access to its waterways and the nearby natural resources.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday that the vice president’s visit was an “unacceptable pressure”. Greenland had described the trip as “highly aggressive”, even before the vice president declared his intentions to go.
Vance’s decision to visit a US military base in Greenland on Friday has removed the risk of violating diplomatic taboos by sending a delegation to another country without an official invite.
Yet, he has also criticised longstanding European allies for relying on military support from the US, openly antagonising partners in ways that have generated concerns about America’s reliability.
The office of second lady Usha Vance has said she would depart on Thursday for Greenland and return on Saturday.
She and one of her three children had planned to visit historic sites and learn about Greenland’s culture, but her husband’s participation has reoriented the trip around national security.
The US vice president said he didn’t want to let his wife “have all that fun by herself” and that he plans to visit a Space Force outpost on the northwest coast of Greenland.
Vance said that other countries had threatened Greenland, as they had the US and Canada. He said leaders in Denmark and North America had “ignored” Greenland for “far too long”.
The visit to Pituffik Space Base will take place instead of Usha Vance’s previously announced trip to the Avannaata Qimussersua dogsled race in Sisimiut.
Dwayne Ryan Menezes, founder and managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative, said the Trump administration’s “intimidation” of Greenland could backfire.
Menezes said that if Trump was “smart enough” to understand Greenland’s strategic importance, then he should also be “smart enough to know there is no greater way to weaken America’s hand and hurt its long-term interests than turning its back on its allies, the principal asymmetrical advantage it enjoys over its adversaries”.
Ahead of the US vice president’s announcement that he would join his wife, discontent from the governments of Greenland and Denmark had been growing sharper, with the Greenland government posting on Facebook that it had “not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official”.
A protest in Nuuk against Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland.Credit: AP
Still, Vance is allowed to visit the space base, said Marc Jacobsen, a professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, because of a 1951 agreement between Denmark and the US regarding the defence of Greenland.
“What is controversial here is all about the timing,” he said.
“Greenland and Denmark have stated very clearly that they don’t want the US to visit right now, when Greenland doesn’t have a government in place,” a reference to the recent elections there.
During his first term, Trump floated the idea of purchasing the world’s largest island, even as Denmark – a NATO ally – insisted it wasn’t for sale. The people of Greenland have also firmly rejected Trump’s plans.
Trump’s return to the White House has included a desire for territorial expansion, with the US president seeking to add Canada as a 51st state and resume control of the Panama Canal. He has also indicated that US interests could take over the land in the war-torn Gaza Strip from Israel and convert it into a luxury outpost.
AP
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