The prime minister of Denmark is now scheduled to visit Greenland shortly after Vice President JD Vance and other high-ranking U.S. officials capped off a visit to a U.S. Space Force base on the arctic island late this week.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will begin a three-day visit to Greenland on April 2, where she will meet with Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and members of his coalition government, according to a statement from her office.
The visit as a whole will focus on strengthening Denmark’s “bond” with Greenland as well as “continuing the close and trusting cooperation” between the two.
Frederiksen’s announced trip comes just after Vance became the first sitting U.S. vice president to visit Greenland on Friday.
In remarks at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. Space Force base on the island’s northwest coast, Vance predicted that Greenland will voluntarily partner with the United States, which would “make them much more secure.”
He said this “has to happen” because Denmark has not done enough with its protection of the island from foreign adversaries like Russia and China.
“Too often, our allies in Europe have not kept pace. They haven’t kept pace with military spending, and Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view, to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China, and from other nations,” Vance said.
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The vice president’s remarks were largely tamer than President Donald Trump‘s have been on the topic, who has repeatedly suggested the U.S.’s acquisition of the island is a necessity for national and international security reasons.
As recently as Saturday, Trump in an NBC News interview said the U.S. would “100%” get Greenland, adding that there’s a “good possibility that we could do it without military force.”