The vice president of the United States, JD Vance, landed in Greenland on Friday for a visit to a military base seen by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation at a time when President Donald Trump seeks to annex the Danish territory of resources strategically rich in resources.
Trump argues that the United States needs the vast Arctic Island for national and international security and has refused to rule out the use of force to obtain it.
“We have to have it,” the United States president reiterated on Wednesday.
The US delegation, which included National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright, landed at the Pituffik space base in the northwest of Greenland at 12:52 pm (1552 GMT), according to journalists aboard the flight from Washington.
“The president is really interested in Arctic’s security, as everyone knows, and will only become bigger in the coming decades,” Vance said when he reached the dining room of the base. He was also accompanied by his wife Usha, Utah senator Mike Lee, and former national security advisor Julia Nesheiwat, who is Waltz’s wife.
They had to know the members of the US space force. UU. And “see what is happening with the security” of Greenland, Vance said in a video message this week.
Danish and Greenlanic officials, backed by the European Union, have insisted that the United States will not obtain Greenland.
Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has condemned the United States’s decision to visit Arctic Island without invitation, so it was initially a broader visit to Greenland society, such as “unacceptable pressure” in Greenland and Denmark.
Most Greenlands oppose US annexation, according to a January survey.
Key base
The American vice president enraged the Danes in early February when he said that Denmark “was not doing his job” protecting Greenland and “was not being a good ally.”
A deception Frederiksen quickly replied that Denmark had been a faithful ally of the United States, fighting with Americans “for many, many decades”, even in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pituffik base is an essential part of Washington’s antimile defense infrastructure, its location in the Arctic, which puts it on the shortest route for missiles fired from Russia in the United States.
Known as the Thule Air Base until 2023, it served as a warning position for possible attacks by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It is also a strategic location for air surveillance and underwater in the northern hemisphere, which Washington states that Denmark has neglected.
Vance is “correct in the sense that we do not comply with the American wishes for a greater presence, but we have taken measures to know that desire,” said Marc Jacobsen, head of the Royal Danish Defense College, AFP.
He said the Trump administration should submit more specific demands if I wanted an adequate Danish response.
In January, Copenhagen said he would assign almost $ 2 billion to strengthen his presence in the North Arctic and Atlantic, acquiring specialized vessels and surveillance equipment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he considered Trump’s plans for Greenland “serious.” He expressed concern that “NATO countries, in general, increasingly designate the northern extreme as a springboard for possible conflicts.”
Frozen response
Greenland is home to 57,000 people, most of them Inuites. It is believed that it has massive reserves of without exploit minerals and oil, although oil and uranium exploration are prohibited.
The United States Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, a former mining executive, said Fox News On Thursday I expected the United States and Greenland to cooperate in mining to “bring Economic jobs and opportunities to Greenland and minerals and critical resources to the United States.”
Trump’s desire to take care of the ice -covered territory, which seeks the independence of Denmark, has been categorically rejected by Groenlanders, his Danish politicians and officials.
While all political parties in Greenland are in favor of independence, none of them supports the idea of becoming part of the United States.
A new four -part coalition government was announced in Greenland only a few hours before the arrival of the United States delegation, after the elections earlier this month.
The incoming prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said the territory needed unity at this time.
“It is very important that we put aside our disagreements and differences … because only in this way we can deal with the strong pressure to which we are exposed from outside,” he said when his government announced.
Nielsen said that when visiting Greenland when there was not a government in office there, the US administration “showed no respect for an ally.”
Initially, Vance’s wife, Usha, had been initially due to traveling to Greenland only with her son and attending a dog race in the city of Sisimiut. The locals said they had planned to give him an ice reception, with several scheduled protests.
The visit to Sisimiut was canceled and replaced with a visit to the military base.
