March 26 (UPI) — Vice President JD Vance will travel to Greenland later this week, joining his wife Usha Vance and a U.S. delegation for a trip that has been pared back to one day following protests from Nuuk and Copenhagen.
The White House said Tuesday that the visit, which has been pushed back to Friday, will now be limited to a tour of the Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. Space Force facility on the north-western coast of the island.
“There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said in a video posted to X on Tuesday.
He said that in addition to visiting with Space Force personnel, “Guardians,” of the 821st Space Base Group, he wanted to check out the island’s security situation given the number of other countries that “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.”
He added that the Trump administration wanted to “reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland,” and that the semi-autonomous region of Denmark had been overlooked by leaders of both Denmark and the United States for “far too long.”
The BBC reported that armor-plated vehicles that had been flown to Greenland in preparation for the visit were seen being re-loaded onto a U.S. Air Force transport Wednesday.
The change in itinerary was welcomed by Danish and Greenland officials.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen called it “very positive,” saying that Denmark had “nothing against” U.S. officials visiting one of their own bases.
“Masterful spin in many ways, to make [the United States] look like they’re escalating when they’re actually deescalating,” he added.
On Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen condemned the visit by Mrs. Vance, coinciding with a visit by U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, as “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland and Denmark that could not be separated from U.S. President Donald Trump’s designs on the island and vowing to “stand against it.”
Outgoing Greenland Prime Minister Mute Boroup Egede also criticized the visits, warning of the threat posed by outside interference.
The toned-down visit will also likely defuse the potential for protests by locals who, angered by Trump repeatedly saying he wanted to take control of Greenland, have staged anti-U.S. demonstrations with placards with slogans including “Respect international agreements” and “Yankee go home.”
Independence sentiment is gaining strength among the island’s 57,000 population but there is disagreement over the pace of the break away from the mother country with the opposition Demokraatit party, which won elections earlier this month, pledging a very gradual divorce.
