Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that he would join his wife, second lady Usha Vance, on a trip to Greenland this week after an earlier announcement of her plans for a cultural visit to the Danish territory received an icy reception.
The trip comes as President Trump has continued to muse about the United States annexing Greenland, a territory controlled by Denmark. Greenland and Denmark have both repeatedly emphasized that Greenland is not for sale.
The Vances will visit U.S. service members at the Pituffik Space Base on Friday and receive a briefing on Arctic security issues, according to the White House.
Vance said in a video posted on social media that he wanted to "just check out what's going on with the security there."
"A lot of other countries 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, so we're going to check out how things are going there," Vance said.
The original itinerary involved a dogsled race
The renewed attention on Greenland kicked off on Sunday. Usha Vance announced that she and one of her young sons would visit Greenland to see cultural and historical sites, and attend the national dogsled race โ and the White House had said that national security adviser Mike Waltz would visit a U.S. military base on the island.
Usha Vance had received "multiple invitations" to attend the dogsled race โ and the head of a dogsledding association had asked her to wave the flag to open the race, her communications director Nikki Reeves said, citing conversations between the U.S. consulate and event organizers.
But other Greenlandic leaders had expressed concerns. The territory's Prime Minister Mute Egede said in a Facebook post that there would be no meetings between U.S. officials and government officials in Greenland during the visit.
At a cabinet meeting Monday, Trump rejected the notion that the planned visits were in any way confrontational.
"This is friendliness, not provocation. We're dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to them being properly protected and properly taken care of. They're calling us. We're not calling them," Trump said on Monday.
Vance office chides Denmark and past U.S. leaders for 'neglect and inaction'
The vice president's office said in a statement on Tuesday that Trump is "rightly changing course" on the security of Greenland โ and criticized Denmark and previous U.S. presidents for not paying more attention.
"The strategic partnership between the United States and Greenland has long played a vital role in our national and economic security. During World War Two, the United States established over a dozen military bases in Greenland to defend the North Atlantic from Nazi incursion. During the Cold War, the United States committed additional resources to Greenland to defend against Soviet missile attacks," the statement said.
"In the decades since, neglect and inaction from Danish leaders and past U.S. administrations have presented our adversaries with the opportunity to advance their own priorities in Greenland and the Arctic."
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