JD Vance told “certain” European leaders to get over their “crazy overreactions” to President Trump’s designs on Greenland and work to improve the island’s security.
The US vice-president, speaking two days after the White House caused an outcry in Europe by saying that “the US military is always an option” in Greenland, immediately followed his appeal for calm with his own warning: “What we’re asking our European friends to do is to take the security of that landmass more seriously, because if they’re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it.”
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Speaking about his ambitions for Greenland, Venezuela and the world more generally, Trump said the sole limit on his global power was his “own morality”. In an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, the president said “his own mind” is “the only thing that can stop me”.
“I don’t need international law,” he added. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”
Trump also doubled down on his insistence that US ownership of Greenland was “very important”, telling the newspaper: “That’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success … Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
President Macron and the German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier voiced fears about the US unravelling the postwar legal order that brought peace to the continent.
President Macron at the Élysée Palace
EPA/MICHEL EULER /MAXPPP
“My advice to European leaders and anybody else would be to take the president of the United States seriously,” Vance said during an appearance at a White House briefing, which was primarily to defend the actions of immigration agents after the fatal shooting in Minneapolis. However, he could not avoid questions about Greenland and the US military raid on Venezuela.
• Lord Mandelson: Europe must stop ‘piggybacking’ on the US
“What has he said about Greenland? Set to the side the crazy overreactions that I’ve seen from the press and from certain people in Europe … Number one, Greenland is really important, not just to America’s missile defence but to the world’s missile defence,” he said.
“Number two, we know that there are hostile adversaries that have shown a lot of interest in that particular territory … So what we’re asking our European friends to do is to take the security of that landmass more seriously, because if they’re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it. What that is, I’ll leave that to the president as we continue to engage in diplomacy with our European friends.”
Vance in Greenland in March last year
JIM WATSON/AP
Vance’s words are unlikely to reassure western European capitals despite a concerted effort by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, to emphasise diplomacy over sabre-rattling. He said on Wednesday that Trump intends to buy Greenland rather than invade it.
Macron said on Thursday that the US was “gradually turning away” from some of its old allies. “We are living in a world of great powers with a real temptation to divide up the world,” he said in his annual speech to French ambassadors at the Élysée Palace. “The United States is an established power, but one that is gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from international rules that it was still promoting recently.”
In unusually strong remarks, Steinmeier urged world leaders not to let global politics disintegrate into a “den of robbers”. He added: “There is the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order.”
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Vance said Greenland was a vital link in defence for both America and Europe from nuclear attack. “We’re going to make sure we defend America’s interests and I think the president is willing to go as far as he has to to make sure he does that,” he said.
There had been a lot of “bellyaching” from Europe, he said, claiming Denmark had “obviously” not done a proper job in securing the island and had “under-invested”.
Rubio plans to meet Danish officials for talks next week but there were reports on Thursday that Denmark’s ambassador Jesper Sorensen and Greenland’s head of mission in the US, Jacob Isbosethsen, met with officials at the White House for private discussions. During an earlier appearance on Capitol Hill, Isbosethsen told reporters: “Greenland is not for sale.”
Later on Thursday, the US department of defence announced it would sell military equipment worth $45 million to Denmark after the country asked to buy up to 100 Hellfire missiles from the US.