More foreign affairs in a crazy, mixed up world
Taking Greenland by surprise--and needlessly insulting Danish leadership
The people of Greenland have spoken, and rather clearly, in both recent parliamentary elections and in occasional national protests. They remain interested in becoming independent from Denmark, but they are emphatically not interested in becoming part of the United States.
Yet the new Trump administration, as tone-deaf as ever to any response that sounds even vaguely like “no,” is treating Greenlandic and Danish skepticism and opposition as of little consequence in the greater scheme of things, worth insulting but not listening to. A mere gnat in the lemonade at a picnic. What Donald Trump wants is what he insists he will get, and no one is going to spoil his greedy, childish delusions.
The Associated Press—that stubborn thorn in Trump’s side that refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico by its new name, and has been banned from White House press briefings—reported over the weekend about a hastily-scheduled “private” visit to the world’s largest island by Vice President J. D. Vance’s wife and one of their children.
On her cultural tour, Second Lady Usha Vance originally wanted to see the national dogsled race and visit “historic sites” in the sparsely-populated Danish territory, even though getting around there in late winter weather is no smart tourist’s idea of a quick three-day jaunt. Her chaperones could have been none other than Trump’s new national security advisor, Mike Waltz, whose image took a direct hit this week in the Senate hearings on the Signal scandal, and a minor cabinet secretary. She might have been their “beard.” Or they could all have been traveling separately. Nothing was quite clear.
[See “US vice president’s wife to visit island,” March 24, https://apnews.com/article/usha-vance-denmark-greenland-trump-4b2a8d19cbeda770357e84aef740d4b7?user_email=91ac9b91d9f16d9cb53659ee762e8e3af3dfff538fda7e64d6832d45d17cd261&utm_medium=Morning_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=Morning%20Wire_24%20Mar_2025&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers .]
All that has now been scrubbed from the cultural visit, which has been reduced to a quick tour of Pituffik Space Base only, with J. D. himself now leading the group. No more need to bring along her skis. Now her husband has stepped in to scrap the frivolous tourist excursion, instead dragging his family along on an unscheduled tour of Pittufik Space Base, way up north (1,200 miles by dogsled from Nuuk).
Why the Vice President found it necessary to jump in is anyone’s guess. There is no substantive reason for it, except to clean up the messy lack of thoughtful planning. After all, the trip was never official. Nor will adding J. D. to Usha’s tour group make it so; it will only require the addition of more Secret Service agents. For until the new Greenland government is formed, as dictated by recent parliamentary elections, no one in the U.S. government will be invited there on an official visit—according to the outgoing Prime Minister.
Peaceful protesters outside U.S. consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, March 15. AP photo courtesy Christian Klindt Soelbeck
But her husband—the self-appointed oracle, court jester, and narrow-minded judge of how appropriate European responses are to the Brave New World’s rapid-fire, often disjointed pronouncements—apparently wants to make headlines that have nothing to do with his “involvement” in the group chat about “unclassified” Yemeni attack plans that included an Atlantic Magazine editor, and was leaked to the public—in the Signal brouhaha.
Before the Signal episode was publicized, Vance was quick to criticize Danish leaders for not rolling out the red carpet fast enough for his wife, apparently. According to one AP report, Vance told a Sunday morning TV talk show that “Denmark is ‘not doing its job’ with Greenland and ‘not being a good ally,’
and if that means that we need to take more territorial interest in Greenland that is what President Trump is going to do … Because he doesn’t care about what the Europeans scream at us, he cares about putting the interests of American citizens first.”
Mind you, J. D., no one in Europe, including Denmark, has yet to even raise their voices; Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen just keeps responding firmly and evenly, “no,” to Trump’s demand that Denmark sell her island to him. She doesn’t need to scream. The only screamers so far are sitting in Washington, on this side of the Atlantic.
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According to the BBC, the change in plans for the Vance trip has been noted and presumably “welcomed” by the Danish government, after the White House said on Tuesday that J. D. Vance “would join his wife in Greenland but that the couple would only spend a day there visiting the US Pituffik Space Base, on the northwestern coast.”
Although the Vice President “will become the highest-ranking US official to visit Greenland, a visit to a US base is less controversial than the original plan for his wife’s visit, which Greenland's acting head of government Mute Egede called a ‘provocation,’” according to the BBC. (It is also less likely to stir up local protests.)
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Wednesday that the decision was “very positive” and that Denmark had “nothing against” the Americans visiting their own base. Rasmussen also said it was a “masterful spin in many ways, to make [the US] look like they're escalating when they're actually deescalating.”
[See “JD Vance will join wife in Greenland but trip scaled back,” March 26, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgwjllld1ro .]
No more dogsled races for Usha, just a T-shirt from a dull military base visit with J.D. along. Public domain photo
For those not familiar with Greenland’s geography, Pituffik—once called Thule—lies near the west coast of Greenland, across Baffin Bay from Canada’s Ellesmere Island, more than 1,500 miles to the west.
The fiery 1968 crash of a U.S. B-52 bomber headed for landing at Thule contaminated the nearby hunting grounds with plutonium from its payload of four nuclear weapons—B28FI thermonuclear bombs, all damaged or destroyed in the crash. Despite a joint Danish-U.S. cleanup operation, the secondary stage of one of the nuclear weapons was never accounted for. Clean-up workers reportedly contracted radiation-related illnesses, helping fuel a 1990s political scandal in Denmark, a self-declared “nuclear-free zone,” for allowing U.S nuclear weapons to be stored in Greenland.
That crash, followed by lingering reports of deformed wildlife in the area, has remained a contentious issue in U.S.-Greenlandic relations since, if just below the surface. The sudden announcement of Usha and J. D.’s excellent adventure has set off a political uproar of almost equal intensity, roiling the usually-placid political waters in Nuuk, and initially provoking an expensive security detail from Copenhagen to help prepare for the event. Armored vehicles were already on the ground from Washington—and presumably official translators had been called in to augment the tiny staff at the Nuuk consulate.
Up to 70 percent of Greenlanders generally speak only Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), an Inuit dialect, although most leaders still speak Danish—and English, while not widespread, is taught in schools and is a second language in most tourist areas. And while Usha Vance is a Yale-trained lawyer, her linguistic skills are not known to encompass either native language.
The outgoing prime minister, Mute Bourup Egede, who lost his post in the March 11 parliamentary elections to a pro-business opposition party, publicly decried “how big a mess it’s caused” and “American aggression.” Because no new coalition government has yet been formed, no official meetings could be scheduled even if Waltz—or Mrs. Vance, or now, even her husband—were to ask for one.
But if Greenland’s allies “do not speak out loudly about how the USA is treating Greenland, the situation will escalate day by day, and the American aggression will increase,” Egede told a newspaper interviewer last weekend. “The only purpose” of a trip by Waltz is “a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is not to be misunderstood.” [Italics are the author’s.]
See “Greenland’s leader laments ‘Mess,’” March 24, https://apnews.com/article/usha-vance-denmark-greenland-trump-4b2a8d19cbeda770357e84aef740d4b7?user_email=91ac9b91d9f16d9cb53659ee762e8e3af3dfff538fda7e64d6832d45d17cd261&utm_medium=Morning_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=Morning%20Wire_24%20Mar_2025&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20SubscribersTaking .]
The likely incoming Prime Minister, a more measured fellow named Jens-Frederik Nielsen, took a calmer approach to the “mess,” saying on his own social media posting that he was working on building a new coalition government “with the clear goal of creating security for our country and our people.
“When foreign dignitaries travel to our country on what are called private visits, it rightly causes concern,” he wrote … “There is no reason to panic. But there is good reason to stand together and to demand respect. I do. And I will continue to do so.”
Nielsen was quick to “demand respect” for the royal Danish territory of some 57,000 people, a demand he will surely repeat to any official visitors from Washington if he is sworn in as expected later this year. And Danish leader Mette Frederiksen quickly reiterated her disapproval of the high-pressure campaign in a statement released on Danske Radio, the nation’s leading broadcaster:
“The visit from the United States cannot be viewed independently of the public statements that have been made. … We want to cooperate with the Americans. But it must be a cooperation based on the fundamental values of sovereignty and respect between countries and peoples.”
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As a “reformed” Foreign Service Officer—I walked away from the State Department in 1997—I keep my eyes out for unusual and outrageous events occurring in countries of interest to the United States, particularly those I have served in or visited. This sometimes includes analyses of U.S. actions affecting those countries, whether wise or effective—or neither—and in some cases, as this one, frankly puzzling.
I served in Copenhagen as a junior FSO for two years in the mid-1980s, after six months of learning Danish—an unforgiving language to pronounce properly, and which I used so rarely that it soon faded away. No one on the Danish side of my family had spoken it in generations. Back then, most Danes under 50 spoke English so well—usually better than the average American, except for occasional miscues on modern slang—that it was simply not necessary.
During my idyllic time there, I was lucky to see much of the small kingdom whenever my heavy workload permitted, but never fortunate enough to visit Greenland; I had at least one opportunity to tag along on a military attaches’ flight—and still regret having to turn it down. Back then, the State Department did not see fit to operate a consulate in Nuuk (formerly known as Godthab), a city of 20,000, having closed it down as superfluous in 1953.
I recently read that it was reopened only in 2020, during the first Trump administration—and it puzzled me as to why it had suddenly become necessary to operate one there. Few U.S. tourists ever bother to travel to Greenland—the main purpose of most in-country consulates outside the capital is to serve U.S. tourists’ needs—and U.S. officials rarely spend much time in the capital. The U.S. Pituffik Space Base—once called Thule Air Base—is located nearly 1,300 miles away, at the northwestern end of the island. [See map below; also see article at https://www.petersonschriever.spaceforce.mil/Pituffik-SB-Greenland/ .]
Map of Greenland, showing locations of Nuuk and Pituffik Space Base (Thule). Courtesy World Atlas.com
But now the new consulate’s purpose is becoming as clear as the waters of Baffin Bay. It is there to support “private visits” by official tourists—members of the Trump administration’s inner circle. His singularly doltish son, Don Jr., started things off by visiting the island’s capital in early January, raising eyebrows then by making vacuous statements about the “absolute necessity” of U.S. annexation of Greenland, distributing MAGA caps to complete strangers, putting his Dad on speakerphone—to proclaim “we will take good care of you”—and inviting homeless people to lunch, to simulate a crowd of local well-wishers.
Trump Jr. chose not to bring along his controversial ex-fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, who at least might have been of limited assistance as a diplomatic guide; she was at home rehearsing her limited repertoire of social skills in preparation for an upcoming tour as U.S. ambassador-designate to Greece. [See “Homeless people given free lunch,” January 16, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/16/homeless-people-given-free-lunch-to-attend-donald-trump-jr-event-in-greenland .]
A grinning Donald Trump Jr. surveys the site of Dad’s next great casino location in January. Photo courtesy The Guardian
A quick poll apparently commissioned by Trump supporters at the time, and widely publicized, purported to show more than half of Greenlanders supported the idea of U.S. annexation. That poll, quickly discredited, has since been replaced by actual polls showing more than 80 percent disapproval of the idea.
The party which took home the most votes in the March 11 elections, Demokraatit, favors a go-slow approach to independence for Greenland, rather than the immediate independence which left-wing parties had been promoting. The heady cost of governing the country, building up a national military force, and underwriting the expensive transition to post-Danish cradle-to-grave welfare state are all factors that must be considered.
Along with the long-range decisions of whether to apply to NATO for separate membership, to continue receiving security guarantees, or to resume its lapsed EU “membership”—or both. NATO, of course, may not play along; ask Sweden and Finland about their recent experience with holdouts Hungary and Turkey. As an Overseas Country and Territory (OCT) of EU member Denmark, Greenland does receive limited EU funding; it relinquished its separate status as a “county” of Denmark in 1985.
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When independence does come, the political challenges will only multiply for neophytes on the world stage. The island is already largely autonomous and self-governing, except for foreign affairs and military forces, both provided now by Denmark. For decades, Copenhagen has been grooming the mostly ice-covered island for eventual independence, carefully reminding everyone that the first concrete step is holding a national referendum on the issue—absolutely critical before any final decision can be made.
Denmark’s king, Frederik X, has long made clear his personal affection for the island, one of two overseas royal territories still governed by his 1,000-year-old Viking kingdom, and where he served as a military officer decades ago.
Redesigned Danish royal coat of arms (right), with Greenland’s polar bear more prominent. Public domain illustration
He and Queen Mary visited Greenland for a long family holiday in 2024, six months after they assumed the throne. In January, his redesign of the royal coat of arms was widely publicized, subtly but unmistakably elevating the status of Greenland—with a much larger polar bear—and that of the Faeroe Islands, now represented by a larger ram.
For the record, an estimated 2,200 polar bears reside on the west coast of Greenland, if generally away from populated areas, with an unknown number found along its eastern coast, where they are often visible from passing cruise ships. While intrepid hikers are unlikely to encounter polar bears—quite dangerous if awakened and provoked, or if they smell food—they are advised to take extreme precautions against attack when they do, according to VisitGreenland.com. [See “Encountering polar bears while hiking,” at https://visitgreenland.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Infographic-Encountering-polar-bear-while-hiking-in-Greenland-by-Visit-Greenland.pdf .]
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Just getting to Nuuk from the outside world has been a bit of a problem, at least until recently. But now there are more or less regular flights to Nuuk’s brand-new international airport (renovated and expanded to accommodate larger jets, opened November 2024) from either Copenhagen or Reykjavik, Iceland, via Greenland Air, Iceland Air, and SAS. And perhaps coincidentally, United Airlines is planning to inaugurate a direct flight from Newark’s Liberty International Airport to Nuuk in June 2025. Perhaps tourism is finally picking up.
If so, a few tips: Just be sure to get a few Danish kroner at the airport—the official currency; not every merchant actually takes U.S. dollars, or makes change—and try to learn a few helpful phrases in Danish (“Tak” means thank you) or Greenlandic (“Qujanaq”). Read the tourist guide. Acquire an adventurous taste; the local diet includes such delicacies as mattak (whale fat), musk ox steaks, lumpfish roe, and suaasat (a robust stew of potatoes, onions, rice or barley, and meat, often seal).
Suaasat, one of the most popular national dishes of Greenland. Public domain photo
Above all, try to act like a sensible visitor, respecting local tradition—not an empty-headed tourist who thinks the world hangs on your every move.
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Whatever the outcome of the Vance visit, and in spite of the rather ham-handed way the United States is now treating Greenland and its Danish owners, the practical likelihood is that forcible annexation is now mostly empty talk by a frustrated and increasingly erratic president. More hot air from someone who might need to belch more, and talk less.
The New York Times, in fact, thinks Trump’s latest actions and loose talk about Greenland are becoming counterproductive to his desired ends. Letting it sit on a back burner for a few months might make far more sense, it hints in a news analysis this week. Waiting for a new government to be formed would help—along with an official invitation next time. “President Trump seems to have overplayed his cards—big time. His decision, announced this weekend, to send a high-powered U.S. delegation to the island, apparently uninvited, is already backfiring.” [Italics are the author’s.]
The Times analysis blames the backfire in part on spectacularly poor advice by “Trump supporter Jørgen Boassen, a Greenlandic bricklayer involved … in the visit by Donald Trump Jr. in January that was followed by pro-Trump social media influencers passing out $100 bills. Many Greenlanders weren’t so fond of that, either.”
[See “Trump’s moves on Greenland appear to be backfiring,” March 24, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/world/europe/trump-greenland-us.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare .]
But since no one in or near the Oval Office is allowed to read the Times—if in fact, anyone in the White House can still read—the definitive last word will probably come from the resident historian, propagandist, and cheerleader in the Press Office, Karoline Leavitt, the would-be Joseph Goebbels of the Brave New World, who loudly and proudly parrots any drivel Trump feeds her. Her kindergarten-level understanding of events in World War II drew near-universal ridicule when she insisted (and “fiercely”) to a French critic—who suggested, somewhat inappropriately, that we return the Status of Liberty for our recent sins against migrants—that “you’re not speaking German today because of us.”
Followed by a subliminal pox on all you European freeloaders: We saved the world—singlehandedly—with no help from the Allies who took part in the Normandy invasion, or resistance fighters who shielded our soldiers from Nazi capture during the next year, or those who helped form the United Nations: Canadians, Brits, Free French, Poles, Belgians, Dutch, the list goes on. This is the thanks we get ….
Karoline Leavitt, emphatic but not very well informed. Public domain photo
If her skewed and sanitized-by-Tucker Carlson version of history is to be treated as gospel, I can hear the off-the-cuff response now to Greenland questions, something like: It’s only fair we take it back. People in Greenland would be speaking English now if only they’d had the sense to “stay American” when the war ended—as the Dear Leader would surely have squawked, if he’d been in charge—that is, if he’d only been born yet. (Rather than be handed back over as an ally’s protected territory to Denmark, its established owner, as saner minds finally concluded was only fair.)
I was a press officer decades ago, and studied at the feet of three gifted spokesmen at the State Department, Charles Redman, Phyllis Oakley, and Mike McCurry. Over the years since, I have watched spokesmen come and go at State, the White House, Defense, the National Security Council, and elsewhere—the great, including the clever Jen Psaki and sound, workmanlike John Kirby; the merely good or barely average, as in most of them; and the demonstrably grim, such as Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders and those who have followed under Trump, including the unfortunate Ms. Leavitt, a novice still playing the role of a college intern, and poorly.
There is no kind way to put this. Political loyalty aside, not everyone is cut out for this job. Incompetence will out. It becomes clear very quickly to journalists who knows what they are talking about—who understands the guidance better than some of the people who wrote it—and who can help guide at least the better journalists in the audience to report fairly and completely about the events of the day. And who doesn’t know much at all.
For succeeding at this job takes far more than merely memorizing talking points, repeating them earnestly, insisting that the official version is the only version worth printing, dismissing requests for clarification as personally insulting, snarling, then using petulance and sarcasm to hide inadequacy and lack of preparation. Or affecting the slashing wit of Dorothy Parker but coming off as a clownish version of Kellyanne Conway (or perhaps, Marjorie Taylor Greene? What’s next from the podium: blaming Jewish lasers in space for the infiltration of Venezuelan gang members?)
Sarcasm isn’t even slightly becoming on those with so little substance and no visible depth of independent knowledge (and a word to the unwise: it doesn’t make you sound any smarter, either—quite the contrary). Perhaps Donald Trump can get away with it—he is, after all, at core a boorish bully, whose sense of history is palpably thin and nasty insults his first and only response to probing questions—but those who seek to carry his water must do better, if they are to retain any credibility at all. So far, none of Trump’s flacks have come close.
It is a difficult job, though not an impossible one. But better to hire a seasoned expert who does it for money and advancement, a demonstrated professional who can reach an audience without alienating them, than an overeager acolyte who doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to deal with journalists. Turning a troubling question aside while reiterating the “message”—firmly, sometimes with humor but never with rancor—requires a deftness and subtlety of mind that may come with seasoning, and determination, and commitment: nights spent reading “real” history, not watching Fox News for the dumbed-down version.
As we are again watching the process unfold, that hoped-for seasoning—literally, growing up on the job, and learning from mistakes—may never come at all. Sadly, those pitiful five who have served Trump as spokesmen so far have neglected to study anything useful in preparing for the job. And generally, they have only made things even worse, not better.
Next time: More foreign affairs in a crazy, mixed-up world