Denmark’s foreign minister responded to the “tone” of US remarks after vice-president JD Vance visited Greenland, the remote and resource-rich Arctic island coveted by president Donald Trump.
“Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland, you have under invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass, filled with incredible people,” Vance said Friday afternoon during a tour of a military facility.
The scolding of a longtime North Atlantic Treaty (Nato) ally came as Greenland formed a government that excludes the hardliners seeking fast independence. Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the new prime minister and winner of March elections, has spelled out clearly that Greenland isn’t for sale.
In response to Vance’s remarks, Danish foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen urged an end to Washington’s hostile messaging.
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“Of course, we are open to criticism,” Mr Rasmussen said in a three-minute video posted Friday night on social media. “But let me be completely honest: We do not appreciate the tone in which it’s being delivered...this is not how you speak to your close allies.”
[ US vice-president Vance to visit Greenland as Trump ramps up takeover threatsOpens in new window ]
Mr Rasmussen said Denmark respects the US position that it needs a greater military presence in Greenland. He said the US once had 17 military installations and thousands of troops stationed there; the Pituffik Space Base visited by Vance is the remaining outpost.
“We — Denmark and Greenland — are very much open to discussing this with you, with an open mind,” Rasmussen said. He said Greenland is also part of Nato and covered by Nato’s security guarantees.
Back in Washington, Mr Trump said the US needed control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory “for international security.”
“We have to have Greenland,” Mr Trump said. At the Pituffik Space Base, Vance said the president believed “this island is not safe”.
“Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops and in my view to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and from other nations,” he said.
The campaign has left the 33-year-old Nielsen in an uncomfortable position at the center of a geopolitical battle for possession of mineral wealth as melting ice caps open up shipping routes in a remote and once inaccessible region.
[ Greenland leaders lambast US delegation trip as Trump talks of takeoverOpens in new window ]
The stakes were made clear by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who weighed in on the eve of the visit from the Arctic port of Murmansk to say he was watching the situation very closely — and that Trump’s claim was “serious”.
Russia and US are engaged directly in negotiations over Ukraine and Putin’s decision to opine on Greenland, given all the sensitivities around it, signposted his own strategic interest in the Arctic as the one-time Cold War foes take stock of their own spheres of influence.
Mr Trump himself underscored the strategic importance of the island as he spoke to reporters on Friday.
“If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place, and we’re not going to be able to do that,” he said. “We’re not really not relying on Denmark, or anybody else to take care of that situation.”
This is the charged political climate that Mr Vance flew into. He was joined by his wife, Usha Vance, and national security advisor Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright — who were originally on the trip, then off, then put back on.
European officials are inherently suspicious of Mr Trump’s second in command and his antipathy for Europe. At the Munich Security Conference, he eviscerated the continent and told them they were afraid of their own voters. This trip makes him the highest-ranking US official to visit Greenland.
The way he joined the Greenland tour was unusual.
It was originally envisaged as a delegation led by his wife, along with Mr Waltz and Mr Wright. It was also marketed as a friendly-family excursion to take in the sights, including a national dog sled race.
But Danish and local officials were triggered both by the size of the party and the real intentions of the trip. The backlash led to the group and itinerary being reduced.
The end result was an actual upgrade to the scope of the visit — one that Vance sought to downplay. He said on on video message that he didn’t want to let his wife “have all that fun by herself”.
And at early stops, Vance kept things lighthearted — employing an expletive to complain about the below-freezing temperatures, eating lunch with service members and ribbing the base’s colonel about her participation in a polar bear plunge.
And Trump himself sidestepped a question of how forcefully he would pursue the territory by underscoring the historic ties between the US, Greenland, and Denmark.
“We get along well with Greenland we get along very well with Denmark,” he said. “We’ve always had Denmark. There’s a lot of business in the United States. We don’t do so much there, but they do a lot of business in the United States, and I think they want to see, I think everybody wants to see that work out.”
But that approach had curdled by a press conference later in the afternoon. While Vance said there were no immediate plans to expand the US military presence on the island, he also discounted allied outrage over Trump’s intentions and suggestions that administration officials had disrespected European contributions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Recognizing that there are important security partnerships in the past does not mean that we can’t have disagreements with allies in the present about how to preserve our shared security for the future,” Mr Vance said.
It’s not clear there’s support within Greenland for the US to seize the island. A poll found that 85 per cent don’t support the initiative.
But Mr Trump remains unconvinced.
“I don’t know,” Mr Trump said in interview on Wednesday with conservative talk show host Vince Coglianese. “I don’t think they’re un-eager, but I think that we have to do it, and we have to convince them.” - Bloomberg
