The Observer view on JD Vance: spurned in Greenland and humiliated at home, the vice-president should resign

[Demovictory9]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/30/the-observer-view-on-jd-vance-spurned-in-greenland-and-humiliated-at-home-the-vice-president-should-resign

Not for the first time, JD Vance, America’s outspoken vice-president, has made a public fool of himself. He insisted on visiting Greenland despite unequivocal statements by the territory’s leaders and Denmark’s government that he was not invited and not welcome. Vance’s trip was confined to a remote Arctic base, where he briefly spoke to a few Americans. Plans to make a wider tour and speak to Greenlanders were cancelled – because Greenlanders did not want to speak to him.

Such hostility is entirely understandable, given the repeated, provocative and disrespectful declarations by Vance’s boss, Donald Trump, that the US plans to annex Greenland and may do so illegally and by force. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark. Election results this month showed the vast majority of local people back expanded self-rule or outright independence. They do not want to be Americans.

In a feeble attempt to justify what is, in effect, a Putin-style bid to seize another country’s sovereign territory, Vance claimed Denmark had failed to protect Greenland from Chinese and Russian threats – but did not produce any evidence. He also failed to explain why, if such dangers exist, the US, which like Denmark is a Nato member, has not honoured its legal obligation to develop a “collective capacity to resist armed attack” under the 1951 US-Denmark “Defence of Greenland” treaty.

Trump, too, has been prating about Greenland’s importance for “world peace”. It’s true the Arctic region is seeing increased great power competition, partly because climate change renders it more accessible. Yet Trump, in another echo of Ukraine, appears more motivated by desire to control Greenland’s untapped mineral wealth. As in Gaza and Panama, his main interest is not security and justice but geopolitical, financial and commercial advantage. Insulting plans to enrol Canada as the 51st state reflect another Trump preoccupation: a return to an earlier age of aggressive US territorial expansionism.

[Skittles]

1. Trump whore

fucking DISGUSTING

[canetoad]

2. Rec!

[Skittles]

3. the man served and he's pimping for Cadet Bonespurs

ZERO fucking honor

[hlthe2b]

4. He is a poseur.

I dislike Vance with intensity because he molded himself to be something he'd never been earlier in his life/career merely to play to Peter Thiel and his gang of wealthy tech bros--who had decided to back Trump and MAGA movement. Every aspect of his prior life changed with a conversion to an extremist form of Catholicism and away from democratic-principled beliefs. His "guru," Curtis Yarvin, is so extreme that he will make your skin crawl.

He is a fool. But a dangerous one.

[Karasu]

5. He was in the fucking Signal chat. EVERYONE in there needs to fucking go. Yesterday.

[eShirl]

6. O my sweet summer child.

It is not a bug; nay, it is a feature.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. I'm no fan, but I'm sure Mike Pence (and Mother) wouldn't have gone to Greenland.

And BTW, what threats? (Vance claimed Denmark had failed to protect Greenland from Chinese and Russian threats)

Threats are just words, not actions. They don't need to be recognized or responded to unless there's danger if they aren't.