Greenland leaders call visit by US officials this week a ‘provocation’ that shows a ‘lack of respect’ – US politics live
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Greenlandic leaders have criticised an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Donald Trump has suggested the US should annex, Reuters reports.
The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright.
Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation.
“Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede told local newspaper Sermitsiaq. “But that time is over.”
The Greenlandic government, Naalakkersuisut, is now in a caretaker period after a 11 March general election won by the Democrats, a pro-business party that favors a slow approach to independence from Denmark.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the Democrats, called for political unity and said the visit by the US delegation during coalition talks and with municipal elections due next week, “once again shows a lack of respect for the Greenlandic people.”
Waltz and Wright plan to visit the Pituffik space base, the US military base in Greenland. The White House said they will get briefings from US service members there. They will then join Vance to visit historical sites and attend the national dogsled race.
Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the White House national security council, said the US team is “confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self determination and advances economic cooperation.”
“This is a visit to learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people and to attend a dogsled race the United States is proud to sponsor, plain and simple,” Hughes said.
Trump has made US annexation of Greenland a major talking point since taking office for a second time on 20 January. Greenland’s strategic location and rich mineral resources could benefit the US. It lies along the shortest route from Europe to North America, vital for the US ballistic missile warning system.
Chuck Schumer defied calls to give up the top Democratic position in the Senate after he voted for Republicans’ funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, saying on Sunday: “I’m not stepping down.”
Schumer has faced a wave of backlash from Democrats over his decision to support the Republican-led bill, with many Democrats alleging that the party leader isn’t doing enough to stand up to Donald Trump’s agenda.
Explaining his decision during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Schumer said: “I knew when I cast my vote against … the government shutdown … that there would be a lot of controversy.” He said that the funding bill “was certainly bad”, but maintained that a shutdown would have been 15 or 20 times worse.
Schumer has argued that billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) would have used a shutdown to “eviscerate the federal government”, which he said would have been “devastating”.
A delegation of officials from the United States will visit India from 25-29 March for trade talks with Indian officials, a US embassy spokesperson said on Monday.
Assistant US trade representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch will lead the group. “This visit reflects the United States’ continued commitment to advancing a productive and balanced trade relationship with India,” the spokesperson said.
President Donald Trump is expected to impose reciprocal tariffs from 2 April on various nations, causing alarm among Indian exporters, Reuters reported.
India has an “obvious expectation”, a government source said, that the Trump administration could exempt it from reciprocal tariffs as the two nations continue talks on a bilateral trade pact.
The source said US vice-president JD Vance is also likely to visit India in April.
Donald Trump’s second administration has shown an “unprecedented degree of resistance” to adverse court rulings, experts say, part of a forceful attack on the American judiciary that threatens to undermine the rule of law, undercut a co-equal branch of government and weaken American democracy.
The attacks, experts say, threaten one of the fundamental pillars of American government: that the judicial branch has the power to interpret the law and the other branches will abide by its rulings.
The attack came to a head this week when the Trump administration ignored an order from US district judge James Boasberg to turn planes carrying deportees around. “I don’t care what the judges think,” Thomas Homan, charged with enforcing Trump’s deportation agenda, said in a Fox News television interview on Monday as the decision came under scrutiny. The next day, Trump called for Boasberg to be impeached, calling him a “radical left lunatic”.
For months, the Trump administration has made it clear they believe they can ignore judicial orders. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” vice-president JD Vance tweeted on 9 February.
Elon Musk, Trump’s top adviser, has repeatedly called for impeaching judges, and is donating to Republicans in Congress who have supported doing so. House Republicans have introduced resolutions to impeach Boasberg and four other judges who have ruled against Trump.
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly nearing a deal to allow immigration officials to use tax data to support Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, according to reports by the Washington Post.
Under the proposed data-sharing agreement, said to have been in negotiations for weeks, Immigration And Customs Enforcement (Ice) could hand over the names and addresses of undocumented immigrants to the IRS, raising concerns about abuse of power from the Trump administration and the erosion of privacy rights.
If access to this confidential database is agreed upon, it would mark a significant shift, likely becoming the first time immigration officials have relied on the tax system for enforcement assistance in such a sweeping way.
Under the agreement, the IRS would cross-reference names of undocumented immigrants with their confidential taxpayer databases, a move that would breach the longstanding trust in the confidentiality of tax information. Such data has historically been considered sensitive and thereby closely guarded, so the reported deal has raised alarm bells at the IRS, according to the Washington Post.
Donald Trump’s administration is likely to exclude a set of sector-specific tariffs while applying reciprocal levies on 2 April, Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials.
Trump said in February that he intended to impose auto tariffs “in the neighbourhood of 25%” and similar duties on semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports, but he later agreed to delay some auto tariffs after a push by the three largest US automakers for a waiver.
Sector-specific tariffs are now not likely to be announced on 2 April, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing an administration official.
The official added that the White House was still planning to unveil reciprocal tariff measures on that day, although planning remains fluid.
Bloomberg News reported on Saturday that sector-specific tariffs would be excluded.
Danish police have sent extra personnel and sniffer dogs to Greenland as the icy island steps up security measures ahead of a planned visit this week by second lady Usha Vance, AP reports.
The extra officers, deployed the day before, were part of regular steps taken during visits by dignitaries to Greenland, a self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark, a spokesperson said.
Citing office procedure, Danish police declined to specify the number of extra police flown on the chartered flight. News reports put the number at dozens of officers.
Vance’s visit comes at a time when Donald Trump has suggested the United States should take control of Greenland.
Greenlandic news outlet Sermitsiaq posted images of two US Hercules workhorse military aircraft on the tarmac Sunday in Nuuk, the capital, adding that the planes later departed.
Vance will leave on Thursday and return Saturday, a statement from her office said. She and one of her three children will be part of a US delegation that will “visit historic sites” and “learn about Greenlandic heritage.”
Greenlandic leaders have criticised an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Donald Trump has suggested the US should annex, Reuters reports.
The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright.
Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation.
“Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede told local newspaper Sermitsiaq. “But that time is over.”
The Greenlandic government, Naalakkersuisut, is now in a caretaker period after a 11 March general election won by the Democrats, a pro-business party that favors a slow approach to independence from Denmark.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the Democrats, called for political unity and said the visit by the US delegation during coalition talks and with municipal elections due next week, “once again shows a lack of respect for the Greenlandic people.”
Waltz and Wright plan to visit the Pituffik space base, the US military base in Greenland. The White House said they will get briefings from US service members there. They will then join Vance to visit historical sites and attend the national dogsled race.
Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the White House national security council, said the US team is “confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self determination and advances economic cooperation.”
“This is a visit to learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people and to attend a dogsled race the United States is proud to sponsor, plain and simple,” Hughes said.
Trump has made US annexation of Greenland a major talking point since taking office for a second time on 20 January. Greenland’s strategic location and rich mineral resources could benefit the US. It lies along the shortest route from Europe to North America, vital for the US ballistic missile warning system.