Vice President JD Vance refuses to mince his words with European allies.
From blasting European nations on censorship issues, to publicly urging Ukrainian Vice President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to express gratitude for U.S. support during its conflict with Russia, Vance has secured his spot as a vocal advocate and messenger for the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ agenda.
Now Vance has another opportunity to deliver the Trump administration’s gospel. He will be visiting Greenland Friday amid efforts from President Donald Trump to check off another foreign policy win for his administration and acquire the Danish territory.
While, historically, vice presidents have resorted to the wings and allowed the president to take center stage on foreign policy issues, that is not the case for Vance. He is in the foreign policy spotlight now.
‘He’s someone who’s not going to just sit by and stand back like Mike Pence did a lot of the times,’ a GOP source familiar with Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda told Fox News Digital on Thursday. ‘He’s really taking the charge.’
Vance and second lady Usha Vance, along with National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, are poised to visit Pituffik Space Base in Greenland Friday, the Department of Defense’s northernmost military installation that houses Space Force’s 821st Space Base Group to conduct missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations.
Vance’s departure from his predecessors and involvement in the foreign policy theater stems from a generational shift following the Global War on Terror, according to Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida.
While former vice presidents Mike Pence and Joe Biden had no direct military experience, that’s not the case for the current cohort of foreign policy leaders at the White House.
Vance, who served for four years in the Marine Corps and completed a deployment to Iraq, and Waltz, a former Army Green Beret who served four deployments to Afghanistan, are now calling the shots on foreign policy initiatives for the White House’s agenda.
‘Like myself, Mike Waltz, and others, he served in the Global War on Terror and saw firsthand the damage of bad foreign policy,’ Mast, a combat veteran who lost both his legs during a deployment to Afghanistan, said in a Thursday statement to Fox News Digital. ‘Unlike other vice presidents, JD’s not afraid to go out there and talk about what he cares about — and what he cares about is putting America First.’
The Trump administration has accused Denmark of neglecting Greenland, and Trump has said that acquiring Greenland is critical for national security purposes as a strategic area in the Arctic.
But leaders in Denmark and Greenland remain unequivocally opposed to Greenland becoming part of the U.S., although Greenland’s prime minister has called for independence from Copenhagen.
Meanwhile, Denmark has come under scrutiny for its treatment of indigenous people from Greenland. A group of indigenous women from Greenland sued the Danish government in May 2024 and accused Danish health officials of fitting them with intrauterine devices without their knowledge between the 1960s and 1970s.
Denmark and Greenland launched an investigation into the matter in 2022, and the report is expected for release this year.
A senior White House official said in a statement to Fox News Digital that Denmark’s treatment of the people of Greenland will be a prominent aspect of the visit.
‘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. Expect the Vice President to emphasize these points as well,’ the official said.
Greenland is rich in natural resources, including oil and natural gas, and both Russia and China have bolstered their presence in the region in recent years.
Mast also pointed out how European countries are now vowing to bolster defense spending as an example of Vance’s leadership. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put forth an $841 billion proposal March 4 for European Union nations to enhance defense spending.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged in February to boost his country’s defense spending to 2.5% of its gross domestic value. That is an increase from the 2.3% the U.K. currently spends, and amounts to a nearly $17 billion increase.
As a result, Mast said that Vance’s approach is proving successful in lighting a fire under European allies to take action.
‘He wants to make sure America is not being taken advantage of, or being taken for granted,’ Mast said. ‘We need a Europe that steps up and is an equal partner, because if you are not a partner, then you are a dependent. Europe needs to hear this tough talk, and it’s already working.’
Vance’s tough stance on Europe emerged recently when messages from a group chat discussing strikes against Yemen leaked on Monday, according to a report from the Atlantic.
The group chat, which included White House officials like Waltz and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, outlined plans to strike Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Vance initially remained skeptical of the strikes, and in one message, he said: ‘I just hate bailing out the Europeans again.’
Vance has signaled such views publicly as well in recent appearances. At the Munich Security Conference in February, he laid out the Trump administration’s stance that Europe ‘step up in a big way to provide for its own defense,’ while also cautioning that Russia and China don’t jeopardize as great a threat to European nations as the ‘threat from within,’ in regard to issues like censorship and illegal immigration.
European leaders decried the statements, and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he interpreted the remarks as a comparison to ‘conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes.’
When Zelenskyy visited the White House in February, Vance also didn’t shy away from defending the Trump administration’s position. After Zelenskyy pointed out that Russian President Vladimir Putin has a history of breaking agreements and challenged Vance’s statements that the path forward was through diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, Vance accused Zelenskyy of being ‘disrespectful.’
‘Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?’ Vance asked at the Oval Office meeting.
Vance declined to comment through a spokesperson when reached for a statement by Fox News Digital.
Now, Vance is slated to exercise his foreign policy skills again with a trip abroad less than eight weeks after appearing in Munich and his spat with Zelenskyy.
While it’s unclear whether the Trump administration will successfully take over Greenland, Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, predicted that Vance’s understanding of Trump’s America First agenda will shine through during the vice president’s trip to Greenland once again.
‘JD Vance was a great messenger for that agenda in the Oval Office exchange with Zelensky, in his speech in Munich, and I expect we’ll see it again during his trip to Greenland,’ Banks said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
