Vice President JD Vance’s first impression of the territory that President Donald Trump is obsessed with owning wasn’t all that sunny.
“It’s cold as s--t here,” Vance declared after touching down in Greenland for a diplomatic visit on Friday, according to The Guardian. “Nobody told me.”
In fairness, it was -2 degrees Fahrenheit when the VP, accompanied by his wife Usha Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, arrived at the U.S. military base in Pituffik. Vance, despite donning a large winter coat and gloves, wore no headgear. The coalition was there to tour the base and meet with military members.
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It’s possible the VP was in the process of acclimatising. After all, Washington, D.C., where he left from, was in the low 70s today.
Greenland, despite its name, is a notoriously frosty island. Eighty percent of its sprawling land area is covered by a thick sheet of ice. The capital city, Nuuk, near its southern tip, averages around 16 F during the winter. The territory’s northern region, though, can approach -60 F at its coldest.
Ahead of the Vances’ visit, Trump has frequently signaled his hope that Greenland—and its population of around 50,000—will become part of America. He does not, however, want it for its weather. Greenland is rich in minerals such as platinum, gold, and zinc. It also occupies a strategically significant location—especially with China and Russia building out their presences in the Arctic.
Delivering remarks later in the day, Vance thanked “our guardians, our airmen, and everyone else for the warm reception in a very, very cold place.”
Vance also took a shot at Denmark as he emphasized the base’s military importance in defending a potential attack on the U.S. from the north.
“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, from China and from other nations,” he said.
Pushing his boss’s agenda, the vice president argued that Greenlanders “would be a lot better coming under the United States’ security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s security umbrella.”
While Trump has said he supports the island’s autonomy, he also previously suggested the U.S. could use military force to take the territory. Earlier this month, he said Greenland would join the U.S. “one way or another.”
Adding to the cold reception, the media grilled Vance about the Signal chat scandal during the press conference. The VP was one of a number of top Trump officials who discussed an impending strike on terrorists in Yemen after Waltz inadvertently added a prominent journalist to the chat.
Vance fired back, however, as he defended Waltz’s blunder, which has prompted calls for him to be fired. Trump has continued to stand by him.
The press “is really, really interested in forcing the president of the United States to fire someone because of a Signal chat—because of a Signal chat,” he said.
“That is not honest behavior from the American media,” the VP continued. “And if you think you’re going to force the president of the United States to fire anybody, you’ve got another think coming.”
Vance and his wife hardly received a warm welcome from the locals, either. After word of their upcoming visit got out, the trip was scaled back amid a lack of enthusiasm from Greenlanders.
The second lady was initially slated to lead a cultural tour across Greenland, visiting historic sites and attending its iconic dog-sledding race. The White House announced on Sunday that her trip, which was supposed to last several days, had been cut to a single day, during which she would tag along with her husband at the base.
According to a Danish TV report, the decision followed an attempt by American officials to go door-to-door and find Greenlanders who supported the Vances’ visit. Reportedly, they did not find a single one. The White House denied the report.
A Greenlandic tourism business also canceled a planned meet-and-greet with Usha on Wednesday, decrying the Trump administration’s “underlying agenda.” The business declared that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”
This has been the near-universal response from Greenlanders to Trump’s bid to buy—or perhaps annex—the Arctic island.
Greenlanders “don’t want to be Americans, or Danes either. We are Greenlanders,” the self-governing territory’s prime minister, Múte Bourup Egede, wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. “The Americans and their leader must understand that.”
“We are not for sale and can’t just be taken. Our future is decided by us in Greenland,” he added.
