His foolish foreign trip and the response to the Signal chat leak reflect the irresponsibility of White House team
Not for the first time, JD Vance, America’s outspoken vice-president, has made a public fool of himself. He insisted on visiting Greenland despite unequivocal statements by the territory’s leaders and Denmark’s government that he was not invited and not welcome. Vance’s trip was confined to a remote Arctic base, where he briefly spoke to a few Americans. Plans to make a wider tour and speak to Greenlanders were cancelled – because Greenlanders did not want to speak to him.
Such hostility is entirely understandable, given the repeated, provocative and disrespectful declarations by Vance’s boss, Donald Trump, that the US plans to annex Greenland and may do so illegally and by force. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark. Election results this month showed the vast majority of local people back expanded self-rule or outright independence. They do not want to be Americans.
In a feeble attempt to justify what is, in effect, a Putin-style bid to seize another country’s sovereign territory, Vance claimed Denmark had failed to protect Greenland from Chinese and Russian threats – but did not produce any evidence. He also failed to explain why, if such dangers exist, the US, which like Denmark is a Nato member, has not honoured its legal obligation to develop a “collective capacity to resist armed attack” under the 1951 US-Denmark “Defence of Greenland” treaty.
Trump, too, has been prating about Greenland’s importance for “world peace”. It’s true the Arctic region is seeing increased great power competition, partly because climate change renders it more accessible. Yet Trump, in another echo of Ukraine, appears more motivated by desire to control Greenland’s untapped mineral wealth. As in Gaza and Panama, his main interest is not security and justice but geopolitical, financial and commercial advantage. Insulting plans to enrol Canada as the 51st state reflect another Trump preoccupation: a return to an earlier age of aggressive US territorial expansionism.
Vance in Greenland may have preferred a woolly hat to a pith helmet, but his imperialist intentions were unmistakable. Yet despite his frosty reception, he was perhaps glad to escape Washington, where he and his travelling companion, US national security adviser Mike Waltz, are feeling the heat for another scandalous piece of foolishness: the Signal message group security breach. This concerns the inadvertent inclusion of a leading journalist in an online discussion by Vance, Waltz and senior officials of real-time US bombing attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
This breach, by itself, is bad enough. It might have endangered US pilots and wrecked the Houthi operation. The discussion, on an insecure platform, could have been, and probably was overheard by the Russians and others. Yet its contents, which have now been published in full, also include rude and mocking comments by Vance and Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, about European allies. Their shaming, ignorant exchanges dramatically and damagingly highlight the rapid deterioration in transatlantic ties since Trump took office.
Like the Greenland incursion, the official response to the Signal scandal speaks volumes about the true nature of the Trump administration. Trump’s shabby instinct was to deny all responsibility, minimise its importance, denigrate the journalist and dismiss the whole thing as a hoax. Hegseth’s claim that no classified information was released is an obvious, stupid lie, as the transcript demonstrates. There is huge hypocrisy in the refusal of Waltz, Vance and Hegseth to even contemplate resignation, when such a blunder by a lower-ranking official would certainly have led to the sack.
Above all, the hubris, arrogance, amateurishness and irresponsibility revealed by both episodes is truly shocking – and a chilling warning to the world.
JD Vance accuses Denmark of failing to keep Greenland secure as he slams European allies
PITUFFIK, GREENLAND – MARCH 28: US Vice President JD Vance speaks at the US military’s Pituffik Space Base on March 28, 2025 in Pituffik, Greenland. The itinerary for the visit was scaled back after a plan for a more extensive trip drew criticism from officials in Greenland and Denmark, which controls foreign and defence policy of the semiautonomous territory. (Photo by Jim Watson – Pool / Getty Images)
U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused Denmark of underinvesting the security of Greenland and claimed other European allies had failed to keep pace with defense spending.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to gain control of the autonomous Danish territory, describing the prospect as an “absolute necessity” for U.S. national security.
“Denmark hasn’t done a good job at keeping Greenland safe,” Vance told servicemembers at the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on Friday.
“We know that too often our allies in Europe have not kept pace, they haven’t kept pace with military spending and Denmark has not kept pace in devoting 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, China and other nations with interest in this area,” Vance told reporters.
The vice president said the island was important because Pituffik would be the first to alert the U.S. if a missile was fired from an enemy country or enemy submarine at the U.S.
“We know that Russia and China and other nations are taking an extraordinary interest in Arctic passageways and Arctic naval routes and indeed in the minerals of the Arctic territories. We need to ensure that America is leading in the Arctic because we know that if America doesn’t, other nations will fill the gap,” he said.
Following Vance’s visit, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said his country was “open to criticism” but that they did not “appreciate the tone in which it’s being delivered.”
“This is not how you speak to your close allies,” he said in a video message shared on the social media platform X.
“We respect that the United States needs a greater military presence in Greenland, as Vice President Vance mentioned this evening. We, Denmark and Greenland, are very much open to discussing this with you,” Rasmussen said.
reiterated earlier this week his desire to take over Greenland for national and international security purposes, saying the U.S. would “go as far as we have to go.”
“We need Greenland and the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark,” he said, referring to the island which is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen condemned Trump’s comments, saying the “far-fetched” rhetoric was a further escalation from the U.S.
Both the governments of Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly voiced opposition to Trump’s proposals, with Mute Egede, the outgoing prime minister of Greenland, earlier this month saying: “Don’t keep treating us with disrespect. Enough is enough.”
