JD Vance to lead controversial visit by US delegation to Greenland
Vance will join a high-profile delegation, that includes his wife, in visiting the U.S. Space Base
Vice President JD Vance has said he will join his wife on a trip to Greenland, suggesting in an online video that global security is at stake.
Vance will join a high-profile delegation, that includes his wife, in visiting the U.S. Space Base at Pituffik in northern Greenland.
“We’re going to check out how things are going there,” Vance said in a video posted to social media.
"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 are going to check out how things are going there," Vance said in the video.
"Unfortunately, leaders in both America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long."
“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.”
Greenland has been controlled by Denmark for centuries, previously as a colony and now as a semi-sovereign territory under the Danish realm. It is subject to the Danish constitution, meaning any change to its legal status would require a constitutional amendment.
Trump has said repeatedly the U.S. should take over Greenland, claiming the vast island was important for U.S. national security.
The governments of both Greenland and Denmark have voiced opposition to any U.S. takeover. Polls have shown that nearly all Greenlanders oppose joining the United States.
Denmark's prime minister had said on Wednesday that a planned visit by Usha Vance to a popular dog-sled race in Greenland was part of an "unacceptable pressure" on the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
The White House on Tuesday announced that the delegation would instead be headed byJD Vance himself, but that it would only visit the U.S. Space Base at Pituffik in northern Greenland and not the dog-sled race.
"I think it's very positive that the Americans cancelled their visit to the Greenlandic society. Instead, they will visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that," Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told broadcaster DR.