Wednesday 26,March 2025 {HMC} Denmark has welcomed changes to a Greenland trip by US Vice-President JD Vance and his wife Usha, which has been reduced to a visit of just a US space base.
Earlier this week, it was announced that Usha Vance would spend several days in Greenland, visiting the capital Nuuk and attending cultural events like a popular annual dogsled race.
News of the visit came as President Donald Trump continues his threats of taking over Greenland, which is a Danish semi-autonomous territory.
On Tuesday, the White House said that JD Vance would join his wife in Greenland but that the couple would only spend a day there visiting the US Pituffik Space Base, on the north-western coast.
Although JD Vance will become the highest-ranking US official to visit Greenland, a visit to a US base is less controversial than the original plan for his wife’s visit, which Greenland’s acting head of government Mute Egede called a “provocation”.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Wednesday that the decision was “very positive” and that Denmark had “nothing against” the Americans visiting their own base.
Rasmussen also said it was a “masterful spin in many ways, to make [the US] look like they’re escalating when they’re actually deescalating.”
The revised programme will also likely reduce the risk of the Vances being met with protests by local residents.
In recent weeks hundreds of people have taken part in demonstrations against the US, with some holding placards reading “Respect international agreements” and “Yankee go home”.
Earlier in March, Greenland’s leading political parties issued a joint statement to condemn Trump’s “unacceptable behaviour”.
Outgoing Prime Minister Mute B Egede wrote on Facebook that his country would “never be the USA and we Greenlanders will never be Americans… Don’t keep treating us with disrespect. Enough is enough.”
