Second lady Usha Vance plans to travel to Greenland amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated suggestions that his administration should govern the autonomous territory.
However the upcoming visit just isn’t going over well with some local officials, after Trump’s repeated threats to annex the autonomous territory.
In line with the Associated Press, Vance will leave on Thursday and return Saturday.
One among her three children will accompany her as a part of a U.S. delegation that may “visit historic sites” and “study Greenlandic heritage,” her office says.
The cohort may even include Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz.
On Sunday, Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede told Sermitsiaq, one among the country’s national newspapers, that Vance’s upcoming visit was “very aggressive,” adding that American pressure against Greenlandic society has reached critical levels.
“Standing together in Greenland has not helped, speaking out has not helped, and the diplomatic attempt at dialogue is in vain. Now the international community must react,” he said.
His comments come as Trump’s pursuit of the island gains momentum.
In a conversation with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte within the Oval Office earlier this month, the president said he wanted to amass Greenland within the interest of preserving international security.
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“You realize, Mark, we want that for international security … we now have lots of our favourite players cruising across the coast, and we now have to watch out … we’ll be talking to you,” Trump said.
“I believe it’s going to occur,” the president added when asked in regards to the U.S. annexing Greenland.
The island, which has belonged to Denmark in various capacities because the 1300s, is a self-governing territory with jurisdiction over its domestic affairs.
Nonetheless, its foreign policy and defence strategies are overseen by the Danish authorities.
Denmark is a long-standing ally of the U.S., and a founding member of NATO, a military alliance that Trump has threatened to tug out of on quite a few occasions.
Greenland can also be the world’s largest island and residential to a considerable U.S. military base.
Bourup Egede also questioned the aim of Vance and Waltz’s visit, saying it could only be interpreted as a “demonstration of power.”
“We at the moment are at a level where it may by no means be characterised as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife, which is a prospect. Because what’s the safety adviser doing in Greenland? The one purpose is to indicate an indication of power to us, and the signal just isn’t to be misunderstood,” he said.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, touted to be Greenland’s next prime minister, told the identical publication, that, within the wake of upcoming elections, the visit shows “an absence of respect” for Greenlandic people and its democratic process.
“If we allow ourselves to be influenced by it, for instance by rushing to form a brand new coalition, we may turn out to be much more vulnerable to pressure,” he said.
“So let’s cool our nerves and maintain our common goal of showing the skin world that our country just isn’t a commodity and that we now have sovereignty over the country, which have to be respected and nobody can take it away from us,” he concluded.
— With files from The Associated Press
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