President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the purpose of Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Greenland is to reinforce the idea that the U.S. has to acquire the semi-autonomous Danish territory, warning that Americans will “go as far as we have to go” to get control of the island.
In an interview with Vince Coglianese, Trump said a U.S. delegation was traveling to the territory this week “to let them know that we need Greenland for international safety and security.”
“We need it, we have to have it,” Trump said. “It’s a island that from a defensive posture and even offensive posture is something we need, especially with the world the way it is.”
“I hate to put it that way, but we’re gonna have to have it,” he continued.
Asked if he thinks the Greenlandic public would be on board with his plans, Trump said he wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think they’re un-eager, but I think that we have to do it and we have to convince them.”
A recent poll shows the overwhelming majority of the people of Greenland oppose joining the U.S.
This is not stopping Trump, who separately told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that the U.S. “will go as far as we have to go” to get control of Greenland.
Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s defense minister and deputy prime minister, said Trump’s words were a provocation.
“I need to clearly speak out against what I see as an escalation from the American side,” he said, according to Reuters. “The tightened rhetoric is in every way far-fetched.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Wednesday called on the people of Greenland to stand firm.
“The attention is overwhelming and the pressure is great,” Frederiksen wrote in a Facebook post translated by Politico. “You have not been cowed. You have stood up for who you are — and you have shown what you stand for. That has my deepest respect.”
Vance and his wife, Usha, will be traveling to Greenland on Friday as part of a U.S. delegation to visit the U.S. Space Force outpost at Pituffik.
The vice president wasn’t originally due to join the trip but earlier this week said he couldn’t let his wife “have all that fun by herself.” The itinerary for the trip also changed significantly following pushback from local leaders who criticized the timing of Usha Vance’s visit.
In a video posted on his social media, Vance said that leaders in both America and in Denmark “ignored Greenland for far too long.”
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“We can take things in a different direction, so I’m going to go check it out,” he added.