PITUFFIK, Greenland — Vice President JD Vance arrived Friday in Greenland — which President Trump hopes to annex — and was ready with some humor, telling US military personnel: “It’s cold as s— here! Nobody told me.”
Vance, 40, said Air Force Two flew over some “pretty cool spots” approaching the northern coast of the world’s largest island before he sat down for lunch with some of the roughly 600 US troops at the Pituffik Space Base.
The vice president was joined on his whirlwind stop in the Arctic by second lady Usha Vance, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Trump has lobbied for Greenland’s roughly 56,000 residents to sever ties with Denmark and join the United States to boost American interests in the region, including control over important shipping routes and access to rare earth elements.
It was indeed frigid outdoors, where the temperature was -3 degrees Fahrenheit.
“The president is really interested in Arctic security, as you all know, and it’s only going to get bigger over the coming decades,” Vance said, noting that he’s the first vice president to visit Greenland.
The US delegation then received a briefing on the work of the Space Force in the northern frontier, though most of it was closed to journalists.
After extolling a member of the military’s recent polar plunge, in which a daredevil colonel survived “near freezing temperatures, the threat of collapsing icebergs and lusty seals,” Vance asked the press to depart as the main discussion was set to begin.
“Thank you reporters. Get out of here so we can talk about this stuff,” he said.
The trip is a pared-down version of what was originally intended as a goodwill-building mission in which Usha Vance was due to attend the autonomous Danish territory’s annual dog sled race father south.
The dog sled visit was canceled amid pushback from local politicians and business owners.
