« Asskalt here »: Vance visits Trump’s desired island of Greenland
US Vice President JD Vance is not afraid of confrontation and is now provoking with a controversial trip to Greenland-the ice island, which from the perspective of his boss Donald Trump the United States should belong. At the US military base Pituffik, the 40-year-old Republican could go to his possibly next broad side against Europe-and that in the completely secluded north of the world’s largest island. When he enters Greenland soil for the first time, the US vice initially wonders over the frosty minus 18 degrees. « It is a cold here, » he says to greet the US soldiers who are stationed in the world’s northernmost US military facility.
Together with his wife Usha and a US delegation, Vance landed around 1,500 kilometers north of the capital Nuuk in the late afternoon (CET) at the secluded American military base. Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz and Minister of Energy Chris Wright are also included, as could be seen in recordings of US stations.
US Vice President JD Vance (M.) and his wife Usha Vance (ML) posing with the staff of the US military base Pituffik in Greenland. Photo: AFP
The Pituffik base, which was called Thule Air Base until two years ago, has immense importance for global rocket defense and space surveillance. Officially, there was a briefing on the base on the security situation in the Arctic and an encounter with the stationed US soldiers. Unofficially, Europe – primarily Denmark, whose kingdom of Greenland is included – should also have to be prepared for a new verbal attack.
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Trump has had an eye on the ice island for a long time. It is important for the world climate, but also for the military control of the Arctic, into which Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to send other soldiers, as he has just announced. Greenland is also rich in raw materials such as urgently needed rare earths. Important shipping routes also run in the region.
On the island you are anything but enthusiastic that Trump has been claiming claims for months. « We cannot accept the repeated statements about the annexation and control of Greenland, » said the previous head of government and future finance minister Múte B. Eggede and the top of the other Greenlandic parliamentary parties.
Vance did not invite Vance from the official Greenland side. Rather, the island politicians demonstrated the greatest possible unit on the day of the Vance visit: four of the five parliamentary parties signed a contract in Nuuk to a broad government coalition with which they want to withstand the pressure from the USA. The signal, sent out just a few hours before Vance, is clear: Greenland is together. The new coalition around the future Liberal Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen must now be confirmed by Parliament, which is considered a matter of form.
« Yankee, go home! »
Vance stayed away from the capital. Against the background of the continuing intermediate around the largest island on earth, you can choose your journey as an escalation or as a de-escalation: On the one hand, it is the highest representative of the Trump camp who has traveled to Greenland. On the other hand, the Vice President avoided direct contact with the Greenlandic population with the short trip to the US basis-unlike President son Donald Trump Jr. during a public visit to Nuuk in January. And also differently than was planned on his wife’s tour, originally designed for three days, and dog sled races in Sisimiut.
JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance on arrival in Greenland. It was originally planned that Usha Vance would travel without her husband and complete a program of several days on the largest island in the world. Photo: AFP
Usha Vance was originally supposed to travel to Greenland without her husband. These plans have been modified in advance, which should also have to do with the dismissal by the Greenland politics and the island population itself. New protests against the United States were planned around the original journey, which the Vice President now avoids. Already with an earlier demonstration, the unmistakable message « Yankee, Go Home! » to be read.
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Such scenes do not fit into the crooked picture at all that the Trump government wants to draw from Greenland-that of an island that absolutely wants to become part of the USA. In Pituffik, Vance now enjoys a kind of home game in front of US soldiers that he can sell as a success at home-in Nuuk or Sisimiut, there may have been threatening litters with eggs and snowballs.
