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By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Louise Rasmussen
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Danish government ministers condemned what they called President Donald Trump's escalated rhetoric on Thursday and praised Greenland's inhabitants for their resilience in the face of U.S. pressure for control over the Arctic island.
Reiterating his desire to take over Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous Danish territory, Trump told journalists on Wednesday that the U.S. needs the strategically located island for national and international security.
"So, I think we'll go as far as we have to go. We need Greenland and the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark," he said.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen called Trump's statements an escalation.
"These very powerful statements about a close ally do not suit the U.S. president," he told reporters in Copenhagen on Thursday.
"I need to clearly speak out against what I see as an escalation from the American side," he said. "The tightened rhetoric is in every way far-fetched."
U.S. Vice President JD Vance is set to visit the U.S. military base at Pituffik in northern Greenland on Friday. However, an earlier plan for his wife Usha to visit a popular dog-sled race was called off amid local protests.
Almost all Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the United States, according to opinion polls. In recent weeks, anti-American protesters have staged some of the largest demonstrations ever seen on the island.
Poulsen said it was up to the Greenlandic people to determine their future. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen praised residents of the island, which has a population of 57,000.
"The attention is overwhelming and the pressure is great, but it is in times like these that you show what you are made of," she wrote in a Facebook post.
"You have not been cowed. You have stood up for who you are – and you have shown what you stand for. That has my deepest respect," she said.
The planned visit by Usha Vance to the dog-sled event had set off a diplomatic spat between Copenhagen and Washington, and the Danish government welcomed the eventual cancellation.
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Louise Rasmussen and Terje SolsvikEditing by Frances Kerry)
