PITUFFIK, Denmark: US Vice President JD Vance landed in Greenland on Friday for a visit to a military base viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation at a time when President Donald Trump is seeking to annex the strategically placed, resource-rich Danish territory.
Trump argues the United States needs the vast Arctic island for national and international security and has refused to rule out the use of force to get it. “We are not talking about peace for the United States. We are talking about world peace. We are talking about international security,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday.
“The president is really interested in Arctic security, as you all know, and it´s only going to get bigger over the coming decades,” Vance said when he arrived at the mess hall of the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland.
Vance was accompanied by his wife Usha, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Utah Senator Mike Lee and former Homeland Security Advisor Julia Nesheiwat, who is Waltz´s wife.
Danish and Greenlandic officials, backed by the European Union, have insisted the United States will not get Greenland. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has condemned the US decision to visit the Arctic island uninvited -- for what was initially a broader visit to Greenlandic society -- as “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland and Denmark.
A majority of Greenlanders opposes US annexation, according to a January poll. The US vice president angered Danes in early February when he claimed Denmark was “not doing its job” protecting Greenland and was “not being a good ally”.
A fuming Frederiksen quickly retorted that Denmark had long been a loyal US ally, fighting alongside the Americans “for many, many decades”, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pituffik base is an essential part of Washington´s missile defence infrastructure, its location in the Arctic putting it on the shortest route for missiles fired from Russia at the United States.
Known as Thule Air Base until 2023, it served as a warning post for possible attacks from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It is also a strategic location for air and submarine surveillance in the northern hemisphere, which Washington claims Denmark has neglected.
Vance is “right in that we didn´t meet the American wishes for an increased presence, but we have taken steps towards meeting that wish”, Marc Jacobsen, a senior lecturer at the Royal Danish Defence College, told AFP.
He said the Trump administration needed to present more specific demands if it wanted a proper Danish response. In January, Copenhagen said it would allocate almost $2.0 billion to beef up its presence in the Arctic and north Atlantic, acquiring specialised vessels and surveillance equipment.The United States needs Greenland for international security peace, President Donald Trump said on Friday, adding that there were Chinese and Russian ships in the area that Washington could not leave to Denmark or anyone else to “take care of.”
“We need Greenland. Very importantly, for international security, we have to have Greenland,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “If you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place ... we’re not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation,” he added.
Greenland is home to 57,000 people, most of them Inuits.It is believed to hold massive untapped mineral and oil reserves, although oil and uranium exploration are banned. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former mining executive, told Fox News on Thursday he hoped the United States and Greenland could cooperate on mining to “bring jobs and economic opportunity to Greenland and critical minerals and resources to the United States”.
Trump´s desire to take over the ice-covered territory, which is seeking independence from Denmark, has been categorically rejected by Greenlanders, their politicians and Danish officials. While all of Greenland´s political parties are in favour of independence, none of them support the idea of becoming part of the United States.