Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized Denmark and other European allies during his visit to Greenland on Friday, as the Trump administration continues to push U.S. ownership of the semi-autonomous territory.
Speaking to servicemembers at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. Space Force base on the northwestern coast of Greenland, Vance argued that Greenlanders would be better off being under the protection of the U.S. than under Denmark.
“Our message to Denmark is very simple — you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland," Vance said. "You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass."
Days after President Donald Trump said that the U.S. “would go as far as we have to” to take ownership of territory, Vance made a pitch to the people of Greenland: "I think that you’d be a lot better coming under the United States security umbrella than you have been under Denmark's security umbrella."
Asked if the Trump administration had plans to expand the U.S. military's presence in Greenland, Vance said there aren't, but said they do plan to invest more resources such as ice breakers and additional naval ships in the area. He argues it's part of an effort to put an end to ignoring encroachment from other countries, which he said the U.S. has done for the last 40 years.
"We can’t just bury our head in the sand — or in Greenland, bury our head in the snow — and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large land mass. We know that they are," he said.
Vance was asked by reporters several times whether the U.S. would ever use military force to acquire Greenland and he said he doesn't think that will ever be necessary. The vice president said he envisions that Greenlanders will become independent from Denmark and then he said the U.S. will discuss their future with them.
Vance is traveling with his wife, second lady Usha Vance, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and national security adviser Michael Waltz.
After landing in Greenland on Air Force Two, the vice president and his wife were greeted by personnel at the Space Force base.
"It's cold as s--- here! Nobody told me!" Vance said in a mess hall on the base as he sat down to eat with servicemembers. Weather websites showed single-digit subzero temperatures at the time.
Vance said he's the first vice president to visit Greenland and remarked he had had a "beautiful flight." The vice president said he and his team would speak to officials on base to understand how their work contributes to U.S. national security — which has been President Donald Trump's stated reasons for his interest in the U.S. taking control of the Danish territory.
"We’re gonna get a briefing, of course, about, you know, what you guys do every day, and then we’re gonna talk just about, as you’ve heard, we have some interest in Greenland from the Trump administration," Vance said. He added that the administration and the president specifically were interested in "Arctic security."
Trump reiterated his desire to acquire Greenland while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Friday. "We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of, 'Do you think we can do without it?' We can’t."
Hours before Vance and his wife took off from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday night that he had no problem with Trump's proposed land grab of the world's largest island.
Trump’s desire to take Greenland has “long historical roots,” Putin said Thursday at Russia’s Arctic Forum in Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. “This is an issue that concerns two specific nations and has nothing to do with us.”
Trump has for years stated his desire to take over the territory, two-thirds of which sits above the Arctic Circle, and whose melting ice hides a bonanza of rare-earth elements, oil and natural gas.
Denmark fully controlled the island for 300 years until it became a semi-autonomous territory in 1953. Although Greenland gained home rule in 1979, Copenhagen still controls its foreign and defense policy and contributes just under $1 billion to its economy.
It is a vast, sparse land — around the size of Alaska and California combined but with only 56,000 people.
NBC News traveled there this week ahead of Vance's visit and locals said they felt betrayed by their giant North American neighbor.
Patrick Abrahamsen, 45, a search-and-rescue hoist operator for Air Greenland, told NBC News that his opinion of his country’s relationship with America has changed since Trump took office.
“There’s been said some stuff from the administration of Trump, and some of that hasn’t been that polite, I would say,” he said. “The way that they’ve just invited themselves, for example, and the way that they’ve spoken about Greenland has changed the sentiment up here about how Americans are portrayed and how we look at them.”
Abrahamsen added that he used to view the U.S.-Greenland relationship as “always close,” but said, “Now, it’s a different story.”
Anders Laursen, 41, owner of a local water taxi company, had a similar take.
“We have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it’s like the big brother is bullying you,” Laursen said.
That anger saw the U.S. delegation's visit vastly downscaled, albeit with the addition of the vice president. Originally intended to encompass a visit to the capital, Nuuk, and with cultural elements such as a dog-sled race, it will now only last one day and be confined to U.S. Pituffik Space Base, which is hundreds of miles from the capital — and likely any dissenting locals.
One person not raising objections is Putin.
He used his speech in Murmansk to detail past U.S. attempts to annex Greenland dating to the 1860s. The Russian leader has often used his own reading of Ukrainian history — which experts say is replete with ahistorical inaccuracies — to justify his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On the eve of the visit, Greenland's political parties banded together to form a coalition government following elections there last month, according to local media reports.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of Demokraatit, the largest party in the legislature, had urged his rivals to put aside their domestic differences and form the broadest possible coalition to resist the prospect of a hostile Trump takeover.
That appears to have come to pass, with four of the five parties in the legislature involved in the new coalition, local media reported.
During the Greenlandic election, Nielsen, the eventual winner, told NBC News international partner Sky News that “we don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders.”
