Two months into her term as second lady, Usha Vance is stepping into the political spotlight.

Mrs Vance will on Thursday embark on a trip to Greenland, at a time when tensions with the US are at breaking point after Donald Trump repeatedly suggested he would annex the autonomous Danish territory.

Experts say the former lawyer being thrust into the delegation shows she is shouldering some of the high-profile work that would normally have been taken by Melania Trump.

The first lady has made just a handful of public appearances since January, leaving a “soft power” vacuum that the second lady has stepped in to fill. She has been clear about stepping back from Washington DC in her husband’s second term, instead splitting her time between Mar-a-Lago and New York.

Mrs Vance, a virtual political novice, will have to navigate a diplomatically-fraught situation in Greenland and will almost certainly encounter protests by locals angered by the Trump administration’s antagonistic stance.