Vice President JD Vance took a page out of Hamlet and charged that something is rotten in the state of Denmark in a short video announcing his visit to Greenland.
“Unfortunately, leaders in both in America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long,” Vance said in a one-minute video posted to social media on March 25. “That’s been bad for Greenland. It’s also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction, so I’m going to go check it out.”
The vice president’s wife, second lady Usha Vance, also visited the icy island, a semi-autonomous territory legally attached to Denmark and, through Denmark, to the European continent.
Usha Vance also made a video promoting “the long history of mutual respect and cooperation between our nations” and celebrating an important part of local culture.
“I’m particularly thrilled to visit you during your national dogsled race, which our country is proud to support as a sponsor,” she said. “I’ve been reading all about it with my children, and I am amazed by the incredible skill and teamwork that it takes to participate in this race.”
The vice president explained that his visit would be more hard-edged than his wife’s soft-power approach.
“I’m going to visit some of our guardians in the Space Force on the northwest coast of Greenland and also just check out what’s going on with the security thereof Greenland,” the vice president said.
He elaborated, “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.”
Speaking on behalf of President Donald Trump, the vice president said, “We want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world.”
The second lady’s plans to attend the dogsled race were also canceled in favor of a more focused visit.
Denmark’s alleged rotten management of Greenland has been a repeated talking point for the vice president.
“Denmark, which controls Greenland, it’s not doing its job and it’s not being a good ally,” he said in a Fox News interview in February. “So you have to ask yourself, how are we going to solve that problem, solve our own national security?”
The vice president’s proposed solution involved taking “more territorial interest in Greenland” regardless of who it offended.
“That is what President Trump is going to do because he doesn’t care what the Europeans scream at us,” he said. “He cares about putting the interests of American citizens first.”
Part of the vice president’s developing portfolio appears to be provoking European leaders. In February remarks at the Munich Security Conference, he complained of Europeans suppressing speech and shirking their military commitments. Conference Chairman Christoph Heusgen was reduced to tears during his closing remarks.
When the trip was only going to involve the second lady and national security advisor Mike Waltz, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute B. Egede complained to the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq about “American aggression.”
The visit could “in no way be characterized as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife,” Egede warned, calling on European nations to “speak out loudly about how the USA is treating Greenland.”
Egede is a lame-duck prime minister who lost his majority in a March election. He will hold the post until a new government can be formed. However, his probable replacement, Demokraatit party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen, was also critical.
“The fact that the Americans know very well that we are still in a negotiating situation and…they still capitalize on the moment to come to Greenland, once again…shows a lack of respect for the Greenlandic population,” Nielsen said.
Speaking at the Pituffik Space Base on Greenland’s northwest coast, the vice president said, “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.”
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He also insisted that “we respect the self-determination of Greenlanders” and that “our argument is not with the people of Greenland, who I think are incredible and have an incredible opportunity here.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was also on the trip and posed for a group photo in the “amazing and cold” outdoors. He wrote on X that he and the vice president “were tempted to take a cold plunge in the frigid water right behind us…Fortunately, the Second Lady was there to talk us out of it.”
Jeremy Lott is the author of The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency.