US Vice President Vance to visit Greenland, the island Trump wants to control
NUUK, Greenland, March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President JD Vance will visit Greenland on Friday at a time when President Donald Trump is renewing his insistence that Washington should take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
In a scaled-back version of a trip plan that had angered authorities in both Greenland and Denmark, Vance was expected to fly to the U.S. military base at Pituffik in the north of the Arctic island.
Under the terms of a 1951 agreement, the U.S. is entitled to visit its base whenever it wants, as long as it notifies Greenland and Copenhagen.
The initial plan had been for Vance's wife, Usha, to visit a popular dog-sled race together with national security adviser Mike Waltz, even though they were not invited by authorities in either Greenland or Denmark.
Waltz, who has faced pressure over Trump administration officials' discussion of sensitive Houthi attack plans on the Signal messaging app, will still be on the Greenland trip, according to a White House source.
Greenland's acting Prime Minister Mute Egede called the visit a provocation as the country has not yet formed a new government after a March 11 election.
Public broadcaster KNR reported on Thursday, without identifying its sources, that a pro-business party that emerged as the winner of the election will present a broad coalition on Friday.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the U.S. visit " unacceptable" although Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen welcomed news of the revised visit as a positive, de-escalating step.
By changing the trip, the Trump administration is seeking to refocus the discussion on the topics it is interested in: the U.S. presence on Greenland, military capabilities available, and the wider security of the Arctic, said Catherine Sendak, head of the Transatlantic Defense and Security programme at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based think tank.
"A change of course was needed," Sendak told Reuters. "It is positive, given the very public back and forth between the Danish and Greenland governments and the Trump administration about the intent of the initial visit."
Still, Trump reiterated his desire to take over Greenland, saying the U.S. needs the strategically located island for national and international security.
"So, I think we'll go as far as we have to go. We need Greenland and the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark," he said on Wednesday.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen condemned what he called Trump's escalated rhetoric.
WHO BENEFITS FROM DISPUTE?
The question now is how far Trump is willing to push his idea of taking over the island, said Andreas Oesthagen, a senior researcher on Arctic politics and security at the Oslo-based Fridtjof Nansen Institute.
"It is still unlikely that the United States will use military means to try to get full control over Greenland," he told Reuters.
That would break with many fundamental principles and rules that the U.S. has benefited from and has been a pillar for, he said.
"But it is unfortunately likely that President Trump and Vice President Vance will continue to use other means of pressure, such as ambiguous statements, semi-official visits to Greenland, and economic instruments," he added.
"And the real winner in this unnecessary drama is Russia, who gets exactly what they want: discord in the transatlantic relationship."
Tom Dans, a former member of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission during Trump's first presidency, said Vance's visit would help the Trump administration understand where it can collaborate further with Greenland.
"They're trying to put the picture together for the future and understand where the best intersections are going to be for U.S. policy and investments to help Greenland," Dans, a businessman, told Reuters.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Ex-Trump comm director's claim about Newsom's political future
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci made a wild claim about California Gov. Gavin Newsom 's political future amid his clash with President Donald Trump over this weekend's riots in Los Angeles . Newsom continued to taunt Trump Monday afternoon after the president returned to the White House and threatened to arrest the Democratic California governor. Scaramucci has supported Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, since his brief tenure in the first Trump White House. 'Gavin has the guts to stand up to these wannabe authoritarians. I will give him that,' Scaramucci posted Sunday night. Scaramucci highlighted a post from Newsom saying that Trump sending 2,000 National Guard troops into Los Angeles County was 'not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis.' 'He's hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control. Stay calm. Never use violence. Stay peaceful,' Newsom said. On Monday Scaramucci reposted Newsom's demand to have the California National Guard returned to the governor's authority. 'I have formally requested the Trump Administration rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in Los Angeles county and return them to my command. We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved,' the Democrat said. 'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation - this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,' Newsom wrote after Trump made his threat on the South Lawn. Newsom was the one Democratic candidate Trump feared when running against Biden - and later Harris - in the 2024 race, according to Alex Isenstadt's book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power . The ex-president worried that Biden could drop out of the race cuing a Democratic primary. Instead Biden dropped out of the race so late that the party quickly got behind Harris. 'One person he had been worried about was California Governor Gavin Newsom. Always fixated on visuals, Trump thought the handsome, hair-gelled governor was "slick" and the future of the Democratic Party,' Isenstadt wrote. Trump was also annoyed that Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity woud keep having Newsom on his primetime show, Isenstadt said. But in November of 2023, Newsom debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was running against Trump in the Republican primary.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
White House struggles to hire senior advisers to Pete Hegseth
Hegseth will testify before lawmakers on Capitol Hill three times this week, his first appearance since his confirmation hearing. His testimony is scheduled to focus on the Pentagon budget, but no Defense Department budget has been provided to Congress as of yet. Vance, Wiles and others have looked for job candidates in some of the traditional places, including inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, according to the second former U.S. official, a defense official and a congressional aide. Some candidates have been judged politically problematic, the former U.S. official and others familiar with the process said. For example, the White House personnel office has disqualified some for not being MAGA enough, according to the former U.S. official and a current U.S. official familiar with the process. In addition to trying to assist him with hiring, the White House has taken multiple other steps to help — and manage — Hegseth. 'Vice President Vance has had Secretary Hegseth's back since the day President Trump nominated him, and he fully supports the incredible work Pete's doing at the Pentagon to improve military readiness and drive recruitment numbers to record highs,' Vance spokesman William Martin said in a statement. Another White House official said it was typical for the White House to be involved in staffing for key roles across government. Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the White House, said Hegseth enjoys 'the full support' of Trump. But last month White House officials directed Hegseth to cancel a trip to the Middle East after they learned he planned a stop in Israel, according to a current and a former official. Instead, they put Hegseth on Air Force One to travel with President Donald Trump, who did not include Israel in his itinerary. A different Cabinet official, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, visited Israel several weeks later and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump's request. A person familiar with Hegseth's planning said Noem's trip reflected the White House's desire to have Netanyahu meet with a trusted messenger. An unexpected purge When they arrived at the Pentagon early this year, two senior advisers to Hegseth, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, were seen as his close allies — previous colleagues of his, even friends, whom he had brought in to staff key roles. Caldwell was a senior adviser to Hegseth; Selnick was Hegseth's deputy chief of staff. But in April, security escorted Caldwell and Selnick, as well as Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, out of the Pentagon in connection with an investigation into allegations of a leak of sensitive information. In a joint statement, the three men called the way were treated 'unconscionable' and argued that they were not given any information about the investigation, any leak allegations against them or any evidence that had been found. A little less than a week later, the turmoil around Hegseth worsened. The New York Times reported that he had shared sensitive information about an ongoing U.S. military operation in Yemen on a Signal chat that included his wife, his personal attorney and his brother, along with others close to him. The revelation came a month after national security adviser Mike Waltz mistakenly added the editor of The Atlantic to a separate Signal group chat with Hegseth, Vance and other senior administration officials focused on the same military operation in Yemen. Two days after the Times' story was published, Hegseth went on Fox News and accused Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll not only of leaking information while they were employed at the Pentagon, but also of having given the paper the information about the Signal chat. Hegseth did not publicly describe the evidence against them. The drama continued in May when White House officials removed Hegseth and his personal attorney, Tim Parlatore, also a Navy official, from overseeing the investigations into the three suspended aides, according to a current official and a person familiar with the probe. White House officials shifted responsibility for the probe to the deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, with whom such an investigation would normally reside. That move, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, was a sign that there is a growing lack of confidence in Hegseth's ability to objectively oversee the investigation of his former aides. After no evidence against the former aides emerged and it became increasingly clear that the three men were not guilty of leaking, administration officials began to question whether their firings had been hasty, two former administration officials and a current official said. Infighting among the Hegseth advisers who remain continued, meanwhile, according to the defense official and a former administration official. And Hegseth himself remains largely isolated, relying on a small group of advisers, the defense official said. Hegseth now leans heavily on a former military aide, Ricky Buria, who retired from the military in April hoping he could serve as Hegseth's chief of staff, a civilian position. But White House and Pentagon officials view Buria as a political novice who had reportedly been critical of Trump and Vance in private. (A Defense Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from Buria.) As a result, White House officials rejected Hegseth's plan to hire Buria as his chief of staff, one of the defense officials and an administration official said. Despite that, Buria was seen with Hegseth during his recent trip to Asia in a workout video posted on social media. Successes and setbacks Since Hegseth joined the administration in January, he has had successes. He expunged diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs from the Pentagon and the military services. Recruiting, particularly in the Army, is up on his watch, continuing a trend that began before Trump's election but gained strength under Hegseth, according to Trump administration officials. "There has never been more enthusiasm to serve under Secretary Hegseth's leadership at the DoD,' said Parnell, the Chief Pentagon Spokesman. And during his recent trip to Asia, Hegseth was seen as effective in messaging to Beijing to stop any potential aggression in the region, according to current and former administration officials.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Trump's ex-communications director makes wild claim about Gavin Newsom's clash with the president over LA riots
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci made a wild claim about California Gov. Gavin Newsom 's political future amid his clash with President Donald Trump over this weekend's riots in Los Angeles. Newsom continued to taunt Trump Monday afternoon after the president returned to the White House and threatened to arrest the Democratic California governor. Scaramucci, who was hired and fired by Trump in a period of 10 days in 2017, saw Newsom's political stock rising. 'This whole fiasco could make Gavin president,' Scaramucci posted to X Monday morning. Scaramucci has supported Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, since his brief tenure in the first Trump White House. 'Gavin has the guts to stand up to these wannabe authoritarians. I will give him that,' Scaramucci posted Sunday night. Scaramucci highlighted a post from Newsom saying that Trump sending 2,000 National Guard troops into Los Angeles County was 'not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis.' 'He's hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control. Stay calm. Never use violence. Stay peaceful,' Newsom said. 'This whole fiasco could make Gavin president,' Anthony Scaramucci posted to X early Monday morning. Trump was worried about having to run in 2024 against Newsom, but President Joe Biden stayed in the race too long for the Democrats to have a primary On Monday Scaramucci reposted Newsom's demand to have the California National Guard returned to the governor's authority. 'I have formally requested the Trump Administration rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in Los Angeles county and return them to my command. We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved,' the Democrat said. 'This is a serious breach of state sovereignty - inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they're actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California,' Newsom demanded. Newsom continued to admonish Trump throughout Monday. 'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation - this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,' Newsom wrote after Trump made his threat on the South Lawn. Newsom was the one Democratic candidate Trump feared when running against Biden - and later Harris - in the 2024 race, according to Alex Isenstadt's book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power. The ex-president worried that Biden could drop out of the race cuing a Democratic primary. Instead Biden dropped out of the race so late that the party quickly got behind Harris. 'One person he had been worried about was California Governor Gavin Newsom. Always fixated on visuals, Trump thought the handsome, hair-gelled governor was "slick" and the future of the Democratic Party,' Isenstadt wrote. Trump was also annoyed that Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity woud keep having Newsom on his primetime show, Isenstadt said. But in November of 2023, Newsom debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was running against Trump in the Republican primary. Trump, reportedly, wasn't impressed. He thought Newsom had 'bombed,' Isenstadt wrote. 'Ron's an idiot, he doesn't have what it takes. But I thought Newsom would be better,' Trump said at the time, according to Isenstadt's account.
