Vice President J.D. Vance will travel to Greenland to visit the Arctic island with his wife Usha this week.
The trip comes as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up demands for the United States to take over Greenland from the Danish government.
While it might look like a couple’s vacation, the visit is seen by many as a charm offensive to advance Trump’s goal of annexing the island.
The vice president’s involvement is a change in plans.
His wife was initially set to lead a U.S. delegation to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk.
The trip was planned as a tour of cultural sites with national security adviser Michael Waltz.
After international backlash from Greenland and Denmark, however, the Trump administration curtailed the itinerary to a stop at a U.S. military base.
Greenland’s rich mineral resources and Arctic location give the island strategic importance.
The area has become increasingly significant as Russia and China escalate their presence in the Arctic region.
The U.S. maintains a single military base in Greenland, Pituffik Space Base.
Trump’s repeated threats to annex the island, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, have inflamed officials from both Greenland and Denmark.
In a short and diplomatic video, Vice President Vance said there was “so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday” that he couldn’t let her go alone.
The vice president said he is eager to “check out” the security situation in Greenland.
Vance emphasized that the administration’s goal is to strengthen Greenland’s security and the security of the world.
“We’re going to check out how things are going there,” Vance said in the video shared Tuesday.
“Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world.”
WATCH:
Looking forward to visiting Greenland on Friday!🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/p3HslD3hhP
— JD Vance (@JDVance) March 25, 2025
The administration’s initial plans sparked pushback.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen accused Trump of exerting “unacceptable pressure.”
Meanwhile, Greenland government officials insisted that Usha’s trip was uninvited and claimed that there was an ulterior motive.
“We are now at a level where it can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife,” Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede said.
Ahead of Vance’s trip, Trump offered a blunt reminder that the United States intends to acquire Greenland one way or another.
“We need Greenland for international safety and security,” Trump said Wednesday.
“We need it. We have to have it.
“I hate to put it that way, but we’re going to have to have it.”
Despite pushback from government officials, an American acquisition of Greenland presents a great opportunity for the nation’s small population of around 57,000 people.
Should Greenland become U.S. territory, then the island’s inhabitants would likely be granted American citizenship.
READ MORE – GOP Congressman Introduces Bill to Rename Greenland as ‘Red, White, and Blueland’
