Donald Trump’s No.2 JD Vance lands in Greenland for controversial visit as US plots to seize island from Denmark
VICE President JD Vance has arrived in Greenland for a controversial visit as the US plots to seize the island from Denmark.
He’s received a frosty reception on the frozen northern island over the last few days with locals saying they don’t want him there.
Vance and Second Lady Usha descended the steps from Air Force 2 wearing large camo-green jackets waving to the cameras and those welcoming them.
He told soldiers at the base that was really interested in Arctic security.
Vance said: “As you all know, its a big issue and its only going to get bigger over the coming decades.”
The pair are visiting Pituffik, a remote ice-locked US Space Force base in remote northwestern Greenland.
Pituffik is found just 1,500km south of the North Pole and about the same distance north from the capital Nuuk.
His visit comes after his boss Donald Trump has made repeated threats about taking over the island and said he will “go as far as we have to go”.
A senior White House official told the New York Post on Thursday: “Danish leaders have spent decades mistreating the Greenlandic people, treating them like second class citizens.”
On Thursday, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen shot back against any chance of the island joining America.
She said: “Greenland is part of the Danish kingdom. That is not going to change.”
Greenland’s political parties on Friday formed a broad four-party government “to face the heavy pressure” from the US.
All four of the parties are pro-independence from Denmark but disagree over the time frame and don’t believe the island should become part of America.
The new PM said: “The whole situation of coming to visit when there is no government in place, we insist, is not showing respect for an ally.”
Plans for the visit were drastically scaled-down after a diplomatic row erupted.
The initial plan had been for Vance’s wife, Usha, to visit a popular dog-sled race on the island.
But the Americans were not invited by authorities in either Greenland or Denmark.
Usha’s trip to the island was announced on Monday, with Vance’s sojourn announced a day later after the second lady received push back.
Vance said: “There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself and so I’m gonna join her.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the initial plans for the US visit “unacceptable”.
Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen later welcomed news of the scaled-down visit as a positive, de-escalating step.
Reports emerged of US officials going door-to-door in Nuuk as part of a charm offensive ahead of the visit.
Under the terms of a 1951 agreement, the US is entitled to visit its Pituffik base whenever it wants, as long as it notifies Greenland and Copenhagen.
Trump vowed during his joint address to Congress earlier this month that the US would gain control of the world’s biggest island.
He said: “We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it.”
Earlier this month, tensions between the US and Greenland deepened after Trump boasted about the potential for Washington to take control over the Arctic territory.
“I think that it will happen,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
But Greenland’s officials beg to differ.
“We – the leaders of all Parties in the Greenland Parliament – must underscore that Greenland will continue serving ITS people through diplomatic relations, in accordance with international law,” they said in a condemnatory statement.
The officials continued: “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people, and we (as leaders) stand in unison.”
Pituffik was known as the Thule Air Base until 2023, when it was renamed to recognize Greenlandic cultural heritage and reflect its role in the relatively new US Space Force.
The base is locked in by ice for nine months of the year, but its airfield remains open all year round.
It is in constant darkness from November to February and constant daylight from May to August.
ISLE TAKE THAT!
EXCLUSIVE by Patrick Harrington, Foreign News Reporter
Trump could storm Greenland and claim it within 24 hours in the “world’s shortest war”, analysts have revealed.
If Trump did invade, America’s military might would end the war in a day, politics professor Anthony Glees told The Sun.
Speaking to The Sun, Glees said Trump will be surrounded by “people who think he is great” – and it means he will be able to go ahead with any wild ideas he has.
Glees said: “In other words, we have to take him seriously.
“And if Trump wanted to take Greenland by force, he could do it in 24 hours.”
Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told Politico that “there is no defensive capacity in Greenland”.
And it means it would be “the shortest war in the world”.
The conflict would present an “unchartered” situation after the US entered a pact with Denmark in 1951 to defend Greenland against any attack.
The US has a nuclear base on the island that is constantly manned by troops.
Kristian Søby Kristensen, a military researcher at the University of Copenhagen, said: “Who would the Americans be fighting? Their own military?”
Glees said it was likely that, in the event of a US invasion, “there would be no military response to it because it is unthinkable that any Nato member would attack the US”.