Trump shifts Greenland approach amid blowback, Signal scandal

What looked like a Trump administration charm offensive in its gambit to take over Greenland, billed as a cultural heritage tour led by second lady Usha Vance, has turned into something different with the inclusion of her husband and the explosion of a national security scandal at home. 

Planned trips this week to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and a dogsledding race were canceled in favor of a more limited trip to visit American military installations on the island. 

Politicians in Greenland and Denmark, which officially owns the territory, were already lashing out against the official U.S. visit, given President Trump’s expansionist rhetoric. The initial inclusion of national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright raised security and economic concerns in Greenland, an island rich in minerals and strategically located amid growing geopolitical tensions over the Arctic.

Amid the blowback from a bombshell Atlantic report on its editor’s inclusion in a Trump administration war plans Signal group chat, Vice President Vance on Tuesday announced he would join his wife on the trip, saying tongue in cheek that he didn’t want her to have all the fun by herself. 

Denmark Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Danish public broadcaster DR he was supportive of the itinerary changes. 

"I think it's very positive that the Americans have canceled their visit among Greenlandic society. They will only visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that," he said.

The Hill has reached out to Vance's office to see if Waltz and Wright are part of the trip.

It is apparently smoothing over tense relations between the NATO allies; U.S. officials traveling overseas to American military postings is typically noncontroversial.

But Vance’s inclusion in the trip underscores Trump’s fixation on taking the island — an effort for which he has not ruled out using force or coercion. And the vice president’s disdain for Europe, further laid bare in the Signal chat, indicates the Trump administration is not easing its combative approach. 

“The way Trump is basically insisting to capture Greenland, we can know that it is of strategic importance for all the reasons we know,” said Nicolas Tenzer, senior fellow based in Paris with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

“We do not understand the method. … The leaked things that appeared in the discussions, the Trump administration seems to have a kind of contempt for Europe, Europe doesn’t matter. And it seems that for the Trump administration, all the small or middle-size countries are like pawns in a kind of game that Trump is playing.” 

Vance is outspoken in his view that Europe is profiteering from American military and security dominance. But in an extraordinary look at his thoughts behind closed doors, Vance’s remarks reported by The Atlantic demonstrated his deep-seated disdain for Europe. 

“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” he said in a group chat that was part of deliberations over whether to launch an attack on the Houthis in Yemen as they attacked commercial shipping and U.S. military ships in the Red Sea. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, also included in the chat, sent messages agreeing with Vance, saying he shared the vice president's “loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”

“It won’t surprise anyone here,” Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow with the German Marshall Fund and head of its office in Brussels, said of Vance’s comments.

“But it will reinforce existing concerns and perhaps dash hopes that anti-European views were not so widely shared in the administration.” 

Vance and Hegseth’s positions reflect Trump’s own criticisms against Europe: Its governments have failed to meet their responsibilities over defense spending and have taken advantage of the U.S. economically. And the president’s fixation on Greenland falls in line with his criticisms that Europe is unfit to care for its own security. 

Trump first proposed taking over Greenland in his first term, and his rhetoric has only escalated. 

“One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump said during a speech to Congress on March 4. 

Vance’s visit to Pituffik Space Base in Greenland will put the vice president on America’s northernmost installation, which supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance missions, according to the Pentagon. It’s home to the 821st Space Base Group, part of the U.S. Space Force.

“It’s certainly significant as it’s a very high level-visitor, and it’s one of his first international trips,” said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center. “I think it points to the attention that is being paid to Greenland and Greenland’s strategic significance, and in particular the security dimensions of Greenland’s significance to the United States.”

While the U.S. presence at the site dates back to the early 1950s, and it was a critical front line during the Cold War, it has taken on increased importance in the competition and defense against Russia and China’s military and technological investments in the Arctic.

The U.S. base hosts a 10,000-foot runway, a deep-water port, radar system that points north and a satellite receiving station.

“It’s this really interesting symbol of — it’s an artifact of the Cold War, but it’s also this incredibly important point for emerging competitive domains like space,” Pincus said, describing all aspects of life driven by the freezing temperatures.

“It’s an incredibly harsh environment, and the ability to operate a base up there is unique and it takes a lot of effort.” 

Vance, in a video message posted on social media Tuesday announcing he would join the trip, said the point of his visit is to “check out what’s going on with the security there of Greenland.” He said the island — which has a population of 57,000 people and is largely covered by ice — is a primary target for adversaries looking to threaten the U.S. and Canada. He accused Denmark of failing to take Greenland’s security seriously.

“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,” Vance said.

Earlier this year, Denmark announced it was increasing its defense spending and is on track to put 3 percent of its gross domestic product toward its defense budget, passing NATO’s baseline commitment of 2 percent. In January, Copenhagen announced more than $2 billion specifically for defense spending in the Arctic, a nod to focusing security on Greenland. 

The U.S. and Denmark have a bilateral defense agreement that was expanded in 2004, in consultation with Greenland. Independence movements on the island are growing, and Trump’s fixation on owning the island seems to be inspiring a greater desire for autonomy among the population. 

Only 6 percent of Greenlanders surveyed in January favored joining the U.S., with an overwhelming 84 percent wanting full sovereignty from Denmark; 45 percent of respondents viewed Trump’s rhetoric as a “threat,” while 43 percent saw it as an "opportunity.”

Greenland’s top politicians rebuked the Trump administration’s initial delegation announcement, with Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede calling it “highly aggressive.” Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the Demokraatit party and poised to be the country’s next prime minister, said the visit showed a “lack of respect for the Greenlandic people.” 

“The Greenlanders I talked to were insulted that we were talking in this way about their own land as if they're not even there, as if we can just purchase this and buy this as if they are just an object,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said during a Senate hearing last month examining U.S. policy options on the island. 

“If we are trying to solidify our relationship with them, especially in some postindependence position, we are burning those bridges. We are sowing sense of distrust right now, that I think would make it even harder for us to be able to achieve that later.”