This seems to be becoming a habit. When JD Vance travels abroad, he delivers lectures to the local leaders. After his admonitions to Europeans on freedom of expression at the Munich conference in February, the American vice president visited Greenland on Friday, March 28, a territory coveted by the White House. He took the opportunity to attack Denmark, on which this autonomous region depends, while ruling out its unilateral seizure by force.

Vance's presence was not originally part of the itinerary, when his wife, Usha, announced she would be visiting Greenland. Was the addition of the vice president intended as a media diversion, after a week marked in Washington by the "Signalgate" scandal (a journalist was mistakenly included in a confidential focus group of senior US officials devoted to strikes against the Houthis in Yemen)? The vice president hardly ventured outside the US military base at Pituffik, reserved for missile defense. But his words to the soldiers were destined to resonate loudly beyond the base. They were aimed at clarifying the Trump administration's intentions in Greenland, at a time when an overwhelming majority of the local population has expressed its hostility.

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