'P.R. disaster': J.D. Vance expected to attack Denmark on scaled-back visit to Greenland

Vice president J.D. Vance is expected to launch an attack on a U.S. ally during an unsolicited visit to Greenland with his wife.

Second lady Usha Vance had been scheduled to visit the autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark with one of the couple's young sons, but her husband decided to join her on a drastically scaled-back trip after watching outrage over her trip grow amid Donald Trump's threats to take control of the world's largest island, reported CNN.

“It was a combination of a little bit of commotion from Danish leaders combined with Vance wanting to go for a while,” said a senior White House official.

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The Vances departed early Friday on Air Force Two and will return later the same day after visiting the remote U.S. Space Force outpost at Pituffik, with all cultural exchange events canceled, and the vice president is expected to strike a militaristic tone against Denmark, a fellow member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Unfortunately, Danish leaders have spent decades mistreating the Greenlandic people, treating them like second class citizens and allowing infrastructure on the island to fall into disrepair," the senior White House official said. "Expect the vice president to emphasize these points as well."

Greenlanders and their government officials had spoken openly against the second lady's planned visit, and public protests were expected in the capital Nuuk, where about a third of the island's residents live, and its second-largest city Sisimiut, where a dogsled race is taking place.

“Trump’s talk of annexation and the visit of the Vances has united Greenlanders in defiance, with Greenlanders rallying together to protest,” said Dwayne Ryan Menezes, director of the UK-based think tank Polar Research and Policy Initiative.

“The Vances clearly realized that if they visited Nuuk or Sisimiut, the strategy would backfire even more than it has," Menezes added. "It would be a PR disaster, as all footage would likely feature protestors with placards of the sort we saw earlier this month (Yankee Go Home, and Make America Go Away), and would expose to the U.S. electorate the misinformation they were fed about how enthusiastically Greenlanders wished for Greenland to join the U.S.”

Usha Vance had apparently been invited to the dogsled race by American Daybreak, a group founded by Tom Dans, who worked on Arctic issues in the first Trump administration, and organizers for the race made clear they did not specifically invite her, and local media reports indicated Sisimiut residents had planned to silently protest her visit by turning their backs on her motorcade.

“In general, I think most Greenlanders are relieved that the unofficial visit to Sisimiut and Nuuk was cancelled," said said Jakob Nordstrøm, who runs a local pilot business in Nuuk. "Personally, I think it is a big win for Greenland. Most Greenlanders welcome tourists from the United States, but obviously this was not a tourist visit."

The White House official insisted that Usha Vance's original plans was set aside because they were incompatible with the vice president's schedule, not because of the backlash.

“The itinerary changes had nothing to do with any potential protests," that official said.