101: Making Friends and Influencing People

"As you all know, it's a big issue and it's only going to get bigger over the coming decades."

"It's cold as s--- here. Nobody told me."

"[Danish leaders have] spent decades mistreating the Greenlandic people, treating them like second-class citizens and allowing infrastructure on the island to fall into disrepair."

"Denmark has not kept pace and devoted the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view, to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and other nations."

"I think that they [Greenlanders] ultimately will partner with the United States. We can make them much more secure. We could do a lot more protection. And I think they'd fare a lot better economically as well."

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance

JD Vance in Greenland BBC

"[The United States] needs Greenland for international security."

"Greenland's very important for the peace of the world. And I think Denmark understands, and I think the European Union understands it. And if they don't we're going to have to explain it to them."

"We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

"It is a time when we as a population are under pressure."

"We must stick together. Together we are stronger."

"[The U.S. visit signaled a] lack of respect."

Greenland's PM-designate Jens-Frederik Nielson

 

"[Donald Trump Jr's visit in January first sparked concerns] that’s when we realized that his words are no longer just words, he actually means what he says."

"We’re afraid of being colonized again. We’ve been a colony for the past 300 years under Denmark, it still feels like it. Now another colonizer is interested in us."

"[Greenland needs to be] open-minded [and consider strengthening relations with the US to secure a sustainable independence strategy]."

"Trump is only going to be president for the next four years so we also need to think about what’s going to happen in 10 years, 15 years."

Qupanuk Olsen, Greenland politician, pro-independence party Naleraq

U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance was in Greenland on Friday, slamming Denmark for not doing a good job in keeping its semi-autonomous territory safe. But as Greenland content creator Qupanuk Olsen explains, many Greenlanders did not roll out the red carpet for Vance.   CBC

 

It's hard to say whether President Trump's representatives in his White House Cabinet really expected to be welcomed with huge enthusiasm by Greenlanders in their shared trip to Greenland on Friday. Originally the trip was to have lasted longer, and be more expansive, but in the face of obvious push-back by offended Greenlanders who consider their semi-autonomous government under Denmark's protection the arbiter of who should embark on a state visit to their island, and that by special invitation, an invitation that hadn't been extended. 

 

As far as Greenlanders were concerned, the visit by US. Vice-President Vance, his wife and other senior American officials took it upon themselves as an act of hubris to visit unannounced and uninvited; their home, as it were, invaded by strangers. Strangers, no less, with designs on their homeland that are extraordinarily offensive; offering to buy a home that is definitely not for sale. In the end, the visitors confined their trip to visiting the American military outpost at Pituffik on the northwest coast of Greenland. In the process, evading the risk of violating diplomacy through an uninvited delegation.

 

With U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to take over Greenland, the country’s prime minister has called a visit by a U.S. delegation a provocation and highly aggressive. The Americans on the trip include national security adviser Mike Waltz and Usha Vance, the vice-president’s wife.  CBC

Nonetheless both Greenlanders and Danes were offended that the trip took place at all, but even more so that the original itinerary had been planned without customary diplomatic consultation beforehand. Addressing American troops at the U.S. Space Force Pituffik outpost informing them that the Trump administration is very interested in "Arctic security", Vice-President Vance advanced the Trump agenda. His entourage that included national security adviser Mike Waltz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Senator Mike Lee of Utah then received briefings from military officials present at the base.

 

"As you all know, it's a big issue and it's only going to get bigger over the coming decades", Mr. Vance advised  his listeners, as the first U.S. vice-president to ever visit Greenland. In the process of President Trump expressing his intention to 'buy' Greenland from Denmark, relations between the two nations have become extremely strained, with the U.S. President repeatedly suggesting the U.S. should control the mineral-rich territory of Denmark. It is highly unlikely that any two such allies, both NATO members, have ever collided over an issue where one coveted the territory of the other. 

Pituffik Space Base is pictured as Vance visits, on Friday in Greenland. (Jim Watson/The Associated Press)

President Trump alluded to rising Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic, where sea lanes have begun to open in the North West Passage as a result of climate change melting sea ice. Access to the Passage -- part of Canadian territory -- will be yet another issue of aggravated presumption between the U.S. and Canada where at present, diplomacy argues that before embarking through the Passage, permission must be sought from Canada. Which feeds once again into President Trump's argument about U.S. 'security' in his wish to control Canada through annexing it into the U.S.

 

Canada, its government and its population are no more anxious to accommodate the American President's desires of territorial expansion than is Denmark/Greenland. The Pituffik Space Base owned and operated by the United States with Denmark's permission, is situated remotely, 1,100 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. Residents of Nuuk, Greenland's capital, about 1,500 kilometres south of Pituffik, voiced their concern with the U.S. delegation's visit underscoring their misgivings about the most powerful nation on earth coveting their Arctic island.

 

Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen expressed his exasperation following the Vance trip to Greenland, stating that although Denmark can deal with criticism, there is a collegial, diplomatic way of speaking to a friendly democratic ally. Through a video he posted on social media, he declared he had a message "for our American friends." 

"Much is being said these days. Many accusations and many allegations have been made."

"And of course, we are open to criticism. But let me be completely honest, we do not appreciate the tone in which it's being delivered."

"This is not how you speak to your close allies."

Larrs Lokke Rasmussen