The US vice president, JD Vance, and his wife, Usha, are about to reach Greenland on Friday in a drastically scaled-down trip after the original plans for the unsolicited visit prompted an international diplomatic row.
What the White House initially described as a visit by the second lady to explore more about the culture of the island, which Donald Trump openly discusses annexing, soon became contentious – with the leader of the semiautonomous Danish territory Mute Egede describing it as a highly aggressive.
It is happening when President Donald Trump is renewing his insistence that Washington should take control of the semi-autonomous Danis territory.
In a scaled-back version of a trip that had angered authorities in Denmark as well as Greeland, Vance was expected to fly to the US military base at the Pituffik in the north of the Arctic island.
According to the terms of a 1951 agreement, the US is entitled to visit its base wherever it wants, it just needs to notify Greenland and Copenhagen.
Initially, the plan was 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 Denmark or Greenland.
Waltz, who is facing pressure from Trump administration officials’ discussion of sensitive Houthi attack plans on the Signal messaging app, will still be on the Greenland trip as per the White House source.
The acting Prime Minister of Greenland, Mute Egede, called the visit a provocation as the country has not built a new government after a March 11 election.
The Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, called this US visit unacceptable. However, Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen welcomes news of the revised visit as a positive and de-escalating step.
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