United States Vice-President J.D. Vance
United States Vice-President J.D. Vance
US Vice-President J.D. Vance, his wife and other senior US officials visited an American military base in Greenland on Friday in a trip that was scaled back after an uproar among Greenlanders and Danes who were irked that the original itinerary was planned without consulting them.
The revised trip to the semi-autonomous Danish territory comes as relations between the US and the Nordic country have soured after US President Donald Trump repeatedly suggested that the US should, in some form, control the mineral-rich territory of Denmark — a traditional US ally and Nato member.
Friday’s one-day visit to the US Space Force outpost at Pituffik, on the northwest coast of Greenland, removed the risk of potentially violating diplomatic custom by sending a delegation to another country without an official invitation.
Initially, Usha, the Second Lady, was expected to visit with Waltz. Usha also planned to attend a dogsled race in southern Greenland. Vance was not included in the plans.
One travel agency in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, said that it would deny a US request for Usha to visit its office. The organisers of the dog sled race made clear they had not invited her. And the Prime Minister of Greenland, Mute B. Egede, said in an indignant statement that there would be no meetings between US officials and Greenland’s government.
AP & New York Times News Service