Denmark Foreign Minister responded to the US comments “tone” after Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland, the remote and rich Arctic Island coveted by President Donald Trump.
Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Denmark is open to discussions with the US, but asked for the end of.
“Of course we are open to criticism,” he said in a three -minute video posted on social networks. “But let me be completely honest: we don’t appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered … This is not how you talk to your close allies.”
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Speaking on Friday afternoon during a tour of Pituffik space base, Vance scolded NATO member companion Denmark. “You didn’t do a good job for the people of Greenland, you went up in the people of Greenland and rose in the security architecture of this incredible and beautiful land mass, full of amazing people,” said Vance.
The scolding came when Greenland formed a government that excludes the hard line that seek rapid independence. Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the new Prime Minister and winner of the March elections, made it clear that Greenland is not on sale. Vance said on Friday that US control over Greenland would be “much better economically” for the 57,000 residents of the island.
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Rasmussen said Denmark respects the US position that it needs a larger military presence in Greenland. He noted that the US has had 17 military facilities and thousands of troops parked there; Pituffik is the remaining advanced post.
“We – Denmark and Greenland – we are very open to discuss this with you, with an open mind,” he said.
He added that Greenland is also part of NATO and is covered by NATO safety guarantees, and that Denmark recently increased its own expenses with arctic defense.
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Back in Washington, Trump said the US needed control of the semi -automated Danish territory “for international security.”
“We have to have Greenland,” said Trump. At Pituffy space base, Vance said the president believed that “this island is not safe.”
“Denmark did not follow the pace in the dedication of the resources necessary to maintain this base, to maintain our troops and, in my opinion, to keep the people of Greenland safe from many very aggressive raids from Russia, China and other nations,” he said.
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The campaign left Nielsen, 33, in an uncomfortable position at the center of a geopolitical battle for the possession of mineral wealth, as the melting of polar hubcaps opens navigation routes in a remote and previously inaccessible region.
What is at stake was clarified by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who intervened on the eve of the visit, starting from Murmansk’s Arctic Port to say he was watching the situation closely – and that Trump’s statement was “serious.”
Russia and the US are directly involved in negotiations about Ukraine, and Putin’s decision to give their opinion on Greenland, given all sensibilities around it, signaled their own strategic interest in the Arctic, while the ancient enemies of the Cold War evaluate their own spheres of influence.
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Trump himself stressed the strategic importance of the island by talking to reporters on Friday.
“If you look at Greenland now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place, and we will not be able to do that,” he said. “We are not really counting on Denmark, or anyone else, to take care of this situation.”
This is the loaded political climate in which Vance flew. He was accompanied by his wife, Usha Vance, and the National Security Counselor Mike Waltz and the energy secretary Chris Wright – who were originally on the trip, then left, and then returned.
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European authorities are inherently suspicious of the latter in command of Trump and his dislike for Europe. At the Munich security conference, he and told them that they were afraid of their own voters. This trip makes him the highest echelon authority in the US to visit Greenland.
The way he joined the tour of Greenland was unusual.
Originally, it was conceived as a delegation led by his wife, along with Waltz and Wright. It was also marketed as a friendly family tour to take advantage of the sights, including a National Trench race pulled by dogs.
But Danish and local authorities were called both the group size and the real intentions of the trip. The negative reaction led to the reduction of the group and the itinerary.
The end result was a real update of the scope of the visit – one that Vance tried to minimize. He said in a video message that he didn’t want to let his wife “have all that fun alone.”
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And in the early stops, Vance kept things light – using a bad word to complain about temperatures below zero, lunch with military and causing the base colonel about his participation in a dive to capture a polar bear.
And Trump himself avoided the question of how vigorously he would seek the territory, emphasizing the historical ties between the US, Greenland and Denmark.
“We get along with Greenland, we get along very well with Denmark,” he said. “We always had Denmark. There are a lot of business in the United States. We don’t do much there, but they do a lot of business in the United States, and I think they want to see, I think everyone wants to see it work.”
But this approach was coagulated by a press conference later in the afternoon. While Vance said there were no immediate plans to expand US military presence on the island, he also disregarded the allied indignation of Trump’s intentions and suggestions that government officials disrespected European contributions to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Recognizing that there have been important security partnerships in the past does not mean that we cannot have disagreements with allies in the present on how to preserve our shared security for the future,” said Vance.
It is unclear if there is support within Greenland for the US to take the island. A survey found that they support the initiative.
But Trump continues without convincing herself.
“I don’t know,” Trump said in an interview on Wednesday with the conservative talk show host Vince Coglianese. “I don’t think they are discouraged, but I think we have to do that, and we have to convince them.”
