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Danish officials on Saturday withdrew against July criticism by JD Vance for their negligence against Greenland, accusing America of the significant scaling of its military presence in the Arctic.
Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s Foreign Minister, responded to the uninvited visit of the US Vice President to a US military base in Greenland, saying Copenhagen was “open to criticism”, but that “we do not appreciate the tone in which you are giving up-this is not how you talk to your close allies”.
He added: “In 1945, the United States had 17 bases and military installations in Greenland with thousands of soldiers. Today, only one American base has remained. And something like 200 soldiers. We can do more, much more within the frame we have today … Let’s do it together.”
Donald Trump’s public desire to take over Greenland from Denmark has set the future of the Arctic Island and its 57,000 people in the center of geopolitical attention.
Vance, along with US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, visited the Pituffik spatial base on Friday and accused Denmark of not doing “good work from the people of Greenland”.
Greenland is a semi -autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark, but most of its population eventually want independence from Copenhagen.
Danish officials, who discovered a $ 2 billion defensive package after admitting they did not invest enough in the island’s security, initially took a careful approach to Trump’s expansionist claims. But last week they have grown more convincing to postpone against SH.BA
Rasmussen said Vance had also admitted that the US had not invested enough in the Arctic. “The fact is, we have all harvested the dividend of peace. We have all acted on the assumption that the Arctic was and should be a low voltage area. But that time is over. The status quo is not an option,” he said.
Trump has argued that the US has fallen behind Russia and China in areas such as ice -like as its two largest geopolitical rivals for an ice melting in the far north.
But Danish and Greenland officials are terrified of his rhetoric that “we must have” Greenland, refusing to exclude military force.
On Friday Vance said he did not think that “military force would be necessary”, in part because he expected Greenlanders to choose independence from Denmark and after that a closer partnership with SH.BA the vice president added that there were threats from China and Russia in Greenland, but experts said the only public threat came from SH.BA
Denmark has sent troops to fight with US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and its officials were disturbed by criticism by their closest security ally. But they also relieved that Vance did not escalate the issues. “I thought it would be worse,” one said.
Mette Frederikssen, Prime Minister Danish, said Vance’s criticism was not “a fair way to refer to Denmark”, which she called “a good and strong ally” in the US.
According to a broad defense agreement from 1951, the US is allowed to create military bases across Greenland as long as it does not affect Denmark’s sovereignty.
Greenlandic and Danish officials said they had proposed several times in recent years for the US to increase its military trail, but America has instead permeated its presence.
Greenland discovered a new, broad government coalition on Friday. Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the new prime minister, has criticized Vance for disrespect by announcing his uninvited visit as government formation talks were happening.
