Europe ‘reasonable’ in private talks on Greenland plan: Vance
Vice President JD Vance told the Washington Examiner that European leaders’ public hostility to President Trump’s proposal involving Greenland is largely posturing, and that private conversations have been much more reasonable. Speaking en route from Toledo to Minneapolis, Vance said he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are working on a framework for negotiations after Davos, arguing U.S. acquisition or greater control of greenland would strengthen national security and secure critical mineral supply chains. He said European officials privately acknowledge Greenland’s importance to NATO and worry that Russia or China coudl move in over the next three to 15 years. Vance warned that if Russia or China gained influence on the island it would weaken U.S. security and missile-defense posture, and emphasized the need to shore up and secure the region.
Vance says Europe ‘much more reasonable’ in private talks on Trump’s plan for Greenland
EXCLUSIVE — Vice President JD Vance told the Washington Examiner that the public hostility exhibited by European leaders regarding President Donald Trump’s demands for Greenland is simply “posturing,” and that they’ve expressed more “reasonable” responses to the president’s plan in closed-door discussions.
The vice president sat with the Washington Examiner for a half-hour interview while flying from Toledo, Ohio, to Minneapolis on Thursday morning. While speaking in Toledo, Vance largely reiterated the administration’s points that acquiring Greenland would boost American national security interests and its critical minerals supply chain.
The Washington Examiner asked the vice president, whom Trump has tapped alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio to continue negotiations with Europe on a “framework” for a new Greenland deal following the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, how he and Rubio are game-planning the negotiations, given Europe’s open hostility to Trump’s demands.
“They’ve been incredibly hostile in public, and a lot of this is posturing, right? If you’re a European leader, they have to seem like a tough guy against Donald J. Trump,” Vance responded. “So a lot of this, what we’ve seen, is more symbolic posturing for the Europeans. Behind the scenes, they’re much more reasonable.”
The vice president added that, during private negotiations carried out by himself, Rubio, and other senior administration officials, European leaders readily “admit” that Greenland “is important to our shared NATO security alliance” and that both Russia and China have signaled designs to move on the island “over the next three to 15 years.”
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“They’ve also acknowledged that, God forbid, something significant happened in Greenland, the United States would have to play the leading role in defending it,” he continued. “So there’s a broad recognition that much of what we said about Greenland is actually true, and it’s interesting to juxtapose the public posturing with the very reasonable private negotiations that we’ve had with the Europeans.”
“If Greenland were to fall into the hands of the Russians and the Chinese, something that even the Danes themselves have admitted could happen at least over the medium and long term, it would make our security weaker,” Vance suggested. “It would give them power projection abilities. It would make our missile defense weaker, and so these things all counsel in favor of us shoring up that area, making sure it’s properly secure.”
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