US Vice-President JD Vance has announced that he will visit Greenland on Friday alongside his wife, Second Lady Usha. Ms Vance will travel to the island the day before for a two-day visit, during which she will attend a sled-race involving huskies.
Her husband confirmed on X that he would join her the following day, suggesting that he was “going to see how things were going there.” In a video which accompanied his post, he 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 going to join her. “I’m going to visit some of our guardians in the Space Force on the northwest coast of Greenland, and also just check out what’s going on with the security there of Greenland.”
He continued: “As you know, it’s really important. A lot of other countries have threatened Greenland, have threatened to use its territories and its waterways to threaten the United States, to threaten Canada, and, of course, to threaten the people of Greenland.
“So we’re going to check out how things are going there. And I say that, speaking for President 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.
“Unfortunately, leaders in both America and in Denmark I think ignored Greenland for far too long.
‘That’s been bad for Greenland. It’s also been bad for the security of the entire world, we think we can take things in a different direction. So I’m gonna go check it out.”
Mr Vance’s remarks are unlikely to endear him to politicians in either Greenland or Denmark, of which it is currently a protectorate.
In a statement issued on Monday, Greenland’s outgoing PM Mute Bourup Egede, leader of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party, told the Semitsiaq newspaper: “The very aggressive American pressure on Greenlandic society is now so serious that the level cannot rise any higher.
“Standing together in Greenland has not helped, saying no has not helped, and diplomatic attempts at dialogue have been in vain. Now the international community must react.”
Meanwhile Denmark’s PM Mette Frederiksen said: “This is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or wants.
“It is unacceptable pressure being put on Greenland and Denmark, and it’s a pressure we will stand against.”
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