(NewsNation) — Vice President JD Vance, his wife Usha and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz will land in Greenland Friday, kicking off a controversial trip to the self-governing Danish territory.
Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede said the U.S. delegation’s visit was planned without “any invitations” or input from the territory.
What started off as a three-day cultural visit is now a one-day stop. The brief trip to Space Force’s Pituffik Space Base comes as President Donald Trump continues to push for the U.S. to annex the mineral-rich island.
Other officials headed to Greenland include Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and former Homeland Security Advisor Julia Nesheiwat, who is Waltz’s wife.
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JD Vance has supported the idea of America owning Greenland, and is aligned with Trump’s vow to “go as far as we have to go” to obtain the island for national security purposes.
“If there are nuclear weapons coming at the United States, they’re not coming across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, they’re coming over the poles. So having northern monitoring, monitoring for our strategic defense is critical,” Wright told Fox News.
Carla Sands, the former ambassador to Denmark and Greenland under Trump’s first term, told NewsNation that U.S. acquisition of Greenland is “necessary for the security of the United States” and its allies in Europe.
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This delegation has gotten pushback from officials in Greenland, Denmark and the U.S.
Egede criticized the trip before JD Vance announced his participation, calling the U.S. delegation’s visit “very aggressive.”
“The only purpose is to show a show of power to us, and the signal is not to be misunderstood,” Egede told the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq on Sunday.
That’s a sentiment Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen echoed Tuesday. Frederiksen accused the U.S. of placing “unacceptable pressure” on both Greenland and Denmark.
“It’s depressing to me to watch the way the Trump administration talks about our allies, so I am frustrated by it,” former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford, who served under President Obama, said on “NewsNation Now.”
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Even Russia has weighed in. The U.S. rival has said it will put more military personnel in the arctic to defend its interests in the region, President Vladimir Putin said at the International Arctic Forum in Murmansk on Thursday.
Denmark’s TV 2 reported Wednesday that U.S. representatives couldn’t find anyone on the island interested in welcoming second lady Usha Vance for a visit. After allegedly knocking on doors across the capital, the trip’s itinerary was shortened.
The White House team called the story “categorically false,” according to New Republic reporting.
