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The trip was both a reconnaissance mission and a passive-aggressive reminder of President Trump’s determination to fulfill his territorial ambitions, no matter the obstacles.
David E. Sanger covers the White House and national security, and writes often on the revival of superpower conflict, the subject of his newest book.
- March 28, 2025Updated 5:05 p.m. ET
President Trump has been less than subtle in his insistence that the United States will “get” Greenland one way or another, reiterating on Friday that the United States cannot “live without it.”
By the time he uttered those words in the Oval Office, the highest-level American political expeditionary force ever to step foot on the vast territory had already landed to inspect the real estate prospects. But they were confined inside the fence of a remote, frozen American air base, the only place protesters could not show up.
Led by Vice President JD Vance, the American visitors quickly discovered what past administrations have learned back to the 1860s: The meteorological conditions are as forbidding as the politics. When Mr. Vance’s plane touched down in the midday sunshine, 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it was minus 3 degrees outside.
Mr. Vance used a jocular and slightly vulgar epithet to describe the temperature, where he was wearing jeans and a parka, but no hat or gloves. “Nobody told me,” he said to the troops at the Pituffik Space Base as he entered their mess hall for lunch. The U.S. Space Force Guardians, who run what was once known after World War II as Thule Air Force Base, broke out laughing.
But for all the humor, the trip was simultaneously a reconnaissance mission and a passive-aggressive reminder of Mr. Trump’s determination to fulfill his territorial ambitions, no matter what the obstacles. As if to drive home the point, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday: “We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of ‘Do you think we can do without it.’ We can’t.”
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