JD Vance to join wife on controversial Greenland trip

US Vice President JD Vance announced on Tuesday he would join his wife, Usha, on an unsolicited trip to Greenland, a visit that both Greenlandic and Danish leaders have criticised.

Usha Vance's office originally said she and one of her three children had planned to visit Greenland's historic and cultural sites, but her husband suggested the trip would now revolve around national security.

“Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world,” Vance said in an online video.

The couple will visit the US Pituffik Space Base on the northwest coast of the island, receive a briefing on Arctic security issues and meet members of US forces stationed there, according to the White House.

The vice president said the visit to the base was to check on the island's security, as "a lot of other countries have threatened Greenland, have threatened to use its territories and its waterways to threaten the United States, to threaten Canada, and of course, to threaten the people of Greenland."

Vance added there had been alot of excitement around his wife's visit and he didn't want to let his wife “have all that fun by herself."

US President Donald Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz, was initially listed among a group of US officials heading to the island from Thursday to Sunday, but his name was omitted when it was announced that JD Vance was attending.

The planned trip has been slammed by both Greenlandic and Danish politicians.

On Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the US was putting "unacceptable pressure" on the island, a semi-autonomous Danish territory.

"You cannot make a private visit with official representatives from another country" Frederiksen told Danish media.

“It is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs, or what Greenland wants," Frederikson concluded.

Greenland's Prime Minister Múte Egede, who will remain in his post until a new government is formed following fresh elections, called the visit "highly aggressive" earlier on Monday.

Discontent around the visit grew sharper on Monday evening, with the Greenland government posting on Facebook that it had “not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official.”

Both Egede and Frederikson have rejected Trump's repeated advances that the US could take control of the island. Copenhagen, which controls Greenland's foreign and defence policy, has recognised the island's right to independence at a time of its choosing.

US President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated his desire to take over Greenland, using national security as a justification. He has argued upcoming visit was about "friendliness, not provocation".