{"id":683675,"date":"2026-01-09T03:59:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/683675\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T03:59:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:59:28","slug":"jd-vance-tells-europe-to-stop-crazy-overreactions-on-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/683675\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance tells Europe to stop \u2018crazy overreactions\u2019 on Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"

JD Vance told \u201ccertain\u201d European leaders to get over their \u201ccrazy overreactions\u201d to President Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland and work to improve the island\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

The US vice-president, speaking two days after the White House caused an outcry in Europe by saying that \u201cthe US military is always an option\u201d in Greenland, immediately followed his appeal for calm with his own warning: \u201cWhat we\u2019re asking our European friends to do is to take the security of that landmass more seriously, because if they\u2019re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sign up for The Times\u2019s weekly US newsletter<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking about his ambitions for Greenland, Venezuela and the world more generally, Trump said the sole limit on his global power was his \u201cown morality\u201d. In an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, the president said \u201chis own mind\u201d is \u201cthe only thing that can stop me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need international law,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m not looking to hurt people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also doubled down on his insistence that US ownership of Greenland was \u201cvery important\u201d, telling the newspaper: \u201cThat\u2019s what I feel is psychologically needed for success \u2026 Ownership gives you things and elements that you can\u2019t get from just signing a document.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"French<\/p>\n

President Macron at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace<\/p>\n

EPA\/MICHEL EULER \/MAXPPP<\/p>\n

\u201cMy advice to European leaders and anybody else would be to take the president of the United States seriously,\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Lord Mandelson: Europe must stop \u2018piggybacking\u2019 on the US<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has he said about Greenland? Set to the side the crazy overreactions that I\u2019ve seen from the press and from certain people in Europe \u2026 Number one, Greenland is really important, not just to America\u2019s missile defence but to the world\u2019s missile defence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumber two, we know that there are hostile adversaries that have shown a lot of interest in that particular territory \u2026 So what we\u2019re asking our European friends to do is to take the security of that landmass more seriously, because if they\u2019re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it. What that is, I\u2019ll leave that to the president as we continue to engage in diplomacy with our European friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vice<\/p>\n

Vance in Greenland in March last year<\/p>\n

JIM WATSON\/AP<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s 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<\/a> rather than invade it.<\/p>\n

Macron said on Thursday that the US was \u201cgradually turning away\u201d from some of its old allies. \u201cWe are living in a world of great powers with a real temptation to divide up the world,\u201d he said in his annual speech to French ambassadors at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In unusually strong remarks, Steinmeier urged world leaders not to let global politics disintegrate into a \u201cden of robbers\u201d. He added: \u201cThere is the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure we defend America\u2019s interests and I think the president is willing to go as far as he has to to make sure he does that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There had been a lot of \u201cbellyaching\u201d from Europe, he said, claiming Denmark had \u201cobviously\u201d not done a proper job in securing the island and had \u201cunder-invested\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rubio plans to meet Danish officials for talks next week but there were reports on Thursday that Denmark\u2019s ambassador Jesper Sorensen and Greenland\u2019s 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: \u201cGreenland is not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JD Vance told \u201ccertain\u201d European leaders to get over their \u201ccrazy overreactions\u201d to President Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187],"class_list":{"0":"post-683675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115863143349465404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}