Denmark yesterday welcomed a US decision to confine a planned visit to Greenland to a military base after the plans triggered a spat between Copenhagen and the White House amid President Donald Trump’s interest in taking over the island.
Denmark’s prime minister said on Tuesday that a scheduled visit by Usha Vance, the wife of US Vice President JD Vance, to a popular dog-sled race in Greenland this week was part of an “unacceptable pressure” on the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
The White House on Tuesday announced that the delegation would instead be headed by JD Vance himself, but that it would only visit the US Space Base at Pituffik in northern Greenland and not the dog-sled race, a big annual sporting event.
“This is clearly a de-escalation,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said.
“I think it’s very positive that the Americans cancelled their visit to the Greenlandic society. Instead, they will visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that,” he said.
Polls have shown that nearly all Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the US, and anti-American protesters, some wearing ‘Make America Go Away’ caps and holding ‘Yankees go home’ banners, have recently staged some of the largest demonstrations ever seen in Greenland.
Similar protests had been planned in connection with the Vances’ visit.
“I think they have misread the mood in Greenland,” Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, said.
“If they wanted to have diplomatic ties, I think this is the completely wrong way to do it,” she said, calling the visit “chaotic” and “disrespectful.”
Ole Waever, professor at the University of Copenhagen, said there had been widespread concerns about “a soft power operation and creeping American infiltration” that many Greenlanders had found threatening.
“The credit for the positive turn must be given to Greenland ... Caps off to them for that,” he said, referring to the planned protests.
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