WASHINGTON – Vice -president JD Vance said that he was joining his wife on a trip on Friday in Greenland, suggesting in an online video that world security is at stake.
“We are going to see how things are going there,” said Vance in a shared video on Tuesday. “Speaking for President Trump, we want to invigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it is important to protect the security of the whole world.”
President Donald Trump has thwarted a large part of Europe by suggesting that the United States should somehow control the autonomous and mineral territory of Ally Ally Denmark. While the nautical bridge of the Arctic and the North Atlantic is approaching North America, Greenland has a wider strategic value, because China and Russia also seek access to its sailing and neighboring natural resources.
The vice-president’s decision to visit an American military base in Greenland has abolished the risk of raping potential diplomatic taboos by sending a delegation to another country without official invitation. However, Vance has also criticized longtime European allies to rely on the military support of the United States, openly annoying partners in a manner that has aroused concerns about the reliability of America.
Before the vice-president that he would join his wife, the dissatisfaction of the governments of Greenland and Denmark had become clearer, the government of Greenland publishing Facebook on Monday evening that he had “not extended any invitation to any visit, neither private nor official”.
Danish Prime Minister Put Frederiksen told Danish national emissions on Tuesday that it was “unacceptable pressure”.
The office of the second Lady Usha Vance said on Sunday that she would leave on Thursday for Greenland and return on Saturday. Vance and one of his three children had planned to visit historic sites and discover the culture of Greenland, but the participation of her husband has reoriented the trip around national security.
The vice-president said that he did not want to let his wife “have fun on his own” and said that he planned to visit an outpost of the space force on the northwest coast of Greenland. Vance said other countries have threatened Greenland as well as the United States and Canada.
Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz was initially listed among the group of US officials who also headed for Greenland – but his name was omitted when the vice -president was now assisted.
The White House did not say on Tuesday if Waltz’s travel plans had been changed after being revealed that he had wrongly added a journalist to a secure messaging conversation on a military strike in Yemen.
Vance said that the leaders of Denmark and North America had “ignored” Greenland for “far too long”.
The visit to the Pituffik space base will take place instead of the previously announced trip from Usha Vance to the Avannaata Qimussersu race in Sisimiut.
But Dwayne Ryan Menezes, founder and director general of the Polar Research & Policy Initiative, said that “intimidation” of Greenland of the Trump administration could turn against him.
Menezes said that if Trump was “intelligent” enough to understand the strategic importance of Greenland, that he should also be “intelligent enough to know that there is no more way to weaken America’s hand and to harm his long -term interests than to turn his back on his allies, the main asymmetrical advantage which he enjoys on his opponents.”
Although officials of Greenland and Denmark become more vocal by expressing objections, Vance is authorized to visit the space base, said Marc Jacobsen, professor at the Royal Danish Defense College, due to a 1951 agreement between Denmark and the United States concerning the defense of Greenland.
“What is controversial here is all about timing,” he said. “Greenland and Denmark have very clearly declared that they did not want the United States to visit at the moment, when Greenland has no government in place.”
During his first mandate, Trump launched the idea of buying the largest island in the world, even if Denmark, an NATO ally, insisted that it was not for sale. Residents of Greenland have also firmly rejected Trump’s plans.
Trump’s return to the White House included a desire with territorial expansion, the American president seeking to add Canada as 51st state and to regain control of the Panama Canal. He also indicated that American interests could regain the ground in the Gaza Strip tired by the war in Israel and convert it into a luxury outpost.
—Keyton reported in Berlin. The writer Associated Press, Jamey Keaten, contributed the Geneva reports.
