Ahead of Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Greenland today, President Donald Trump said the U.S. will “go as far as we have to go” to get control of the country.
After cutting a dog sled race and a visit to Greenland’s capital Nuuk, Vance and second lady Usha Vance will only visit the Pituffik military space base in the northwest of the island.
President Trump’s strong claims of taking over Greenland have raised concern and distaste from the Kingdom of Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous category.
“We need Greenland for national security and international security,” Trump said to reporters at the Oval office, ABC news reports.
Trump strongly believes that annexing Greenland will help American national security and he has yet to rule out use of economic or military action to succeed, which prompted strong criticism from citizens of Greenland and Danish leaders.
A poll published in the Danish Berlingske and Greenland’s Sermitsiaq dailies shows that 85% of Greenlanders do not want to be part of the United States.
Vance’s visit to Greenland comes amid rising tensions over the U.S.’s interest in the territory. The Pituffik military base, a key installation for the U.S. in the Arctic region, has become a point of focus in the broader geopolitical struggle for control of Arctic resources and strategic positioning.
The Pituffik Space Base is a U.S.-operated installation in northwestern Greenland, and it’s one of the most important military sites in the world. Why? As Peter Ernstved Rasmussen, a Danish defense analyst, says, it’s “quite literally the outermost eye of American defense.”
U.S. Air Force and Space Force personnel stationed at Pituffik handle missile defense and space surveillance, which can detect ballistic missiles in their earliest moments of flight.
As tensions continue to rise, the outcome of Vance’s visit may significantly influence the future of U.S.-Greenland relations and the broader geopolitical landscape of the Arctic.
