Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is main a bipartisan congressional delegation to go to Denmark amid U.S. tensions with the island, he introduced Tuesday.
Jeffries mentioned lawmakers will talk about “the continued importance of the NATO alliance and the geopolitical status of Greenland.”
Reps. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Laura Friedman (D-Calif.) will be part of Jeffries on the journey.
The group can also be scheduled to cease for talks in the UK and Center East throughout a time of “global uncertainty.”
President Trump has expressed a want to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, calling it an “absolute necessity” for nationwide safety to fight the presence of China and Russia within the area. Leaders in Greenland and Denmark have sharply pushed again.
Jeffries in January additionally criticized what he characterised as Trump’s “obsession” with the thought of the U.S. taking on Greenland.
“For far too long, the size of the middle class in this country has gone down, but the cost of living has gone up. That’s a problem,” Jeffries informed reporters within the Capitol.
“The problem is not Greenland; the problem is not the Gulf of Mexico and the need to rename it; and the problem is not the Panama Canal. It’s making sure that the American dream is brought to life for everyone in this nation,” he added.
Greenland and Denmark have been adamant about insisting the U.S. is not going to take management of Greenland.
“Let me be clear: The United States will not get that,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen, mentioned in a March social media submit after being sworn in. “We do not belong to others. We decide our own future.”
Vice President Vance visited Greenland in late March and proposed a plan for a peaceable acquisition of the island.
“What we think is going to happen is that the Greenlanders are going to choose, through self determination, to become independent of Denmark, and then we’re going to have conversations with the people of Greenland from there,” Vance informed reporters two weeks in the past.
Danish leaders have mentioned that in the interim, there’s nothing stopping the U.S. from implementing extra navy bases on Greenland to assuage safety considerations.
“There is a treaty from 1951 where it is very clear that the Americans have huge access to Greenland,” former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt mentioned after Vance’s go to.
She additionally questioned if it was time for Denmark to “scale up” on the island.
“The irony of all this is that the Americans could do exactly the same,” she mentioned. “Greenland is NATO territory. There’s nothing stopping the Americans from getting more engaged militarily in Greenland, having more bases, if that’s what they want.”
