JD Vance will join wife in Greenland but trip scaled back

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.

The White House said on Tuesday 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.

US President Donald Trump has continued his threats of taking over Greenland, a Danish semi-autonomous territory, saying on Wednesday: "We're going to have to have it".

"We need Greenland for international safety and security," Trump added.

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."

On Wednesday morning, Greenland media reported that several armoured cars which had arrived on the island in preparation for Usha Vance's visit were being loaded back on an American military plane.

Greenland - the world's biggest island, situated between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans - has been controlled by Denmark, nearly 3,000km (1,860 miles) away, for about 300 years.

It governs its own domestic affairs, but decisions on foreign and defence policy are made in Copenhagen. The US has long held a security interest and a military presence there since World War Two.

The Pituffik Space Base, located in the north-west of Greenland, supports missile warning, air defence and space surveillance missions.

In a video posted on social media platform X on Tuesday, Vance said there was a lot of excitement around his wife's trip to Greenland. He is joining her because he "didn't want her to have all that fun by herself".

He said the visit to the military installation was to check on the island's security, as "a lot of other countries have threatened Greenland, have threatened to use its territories and its waterways to threaten the United States, to threaten Canada, and of course, to threaten the people of Greenland".

He added that the Trump administration wanted to "reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland", and that the United States and Denmark have ignored it for "far too long".

It is unclear if Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz is still scheduled to visit. The BBC has reached out to the White House for confirmation.

Dr Dwayne Ryan Menezes, founder and managing director of Polar Research and Policy Initiative think tank, based in London, criticised the visit.

He said it was "highly unusual" that a high-level delegation of US officials are visiting Greenland without being invited, especially after a national election in the country, where the parties are still in talks to form the next government.

The US' interest in Greenland's security, given its strategic importance, makes sense, he said. But he added that it is "inexplicable" for Washington DC to have taken such an aggressive approach, especially in light of Trump's comments about acquiring the territory.

"Disrespecting the people of Greenland by saying the US will acquire it 'one way or the other' is unhelpful and counter-productive as a tactic," he added.

According to recent polls, almost 80% of Greenlanders back independence from Denmark. But an opinion survey in January suggested an even greater number rejected the idea of becoming part of the US.

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