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Pope Francis dead at 88, Vatican says
Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, who worked to instill progressive influences on the global church while maintaining unity with conservatives amid years of turmoil, died Monday morning, Vatican camerlengo Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced.
He was 88 years old.
«Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church,» Farrell announced.
«He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God.»
U.S. Vice President JD Vance had just met with the pope on Sunday.
«I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him. I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill. But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful. May God rest his soul,» Vance said early Monday morning in a post on X.
Pope Francis meets with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and his delegation during an audience at Casa Santa Marta on April 20, 2025, in Vatican City, Vatican. (Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
The pope preached frequently on the Catholic virtues of mercy, kindness and humility. He did not shy away from controversy, and American presidents, including Donald Trump and Joe Biden, were not immune from his views.
Less than a month into President Donald Trump’s presidency, the pontiff criticized the Republican’s plans for the mass deportations of migrants, stressing that the forceful removal of people simply for their immigration status deprives them of their inherent dignity and «will end badly.»
In a strongly worded letter to U.S. Catholic Bishops, the pope appeared to counter remarks made by Vice President JD Vance — who had recently converted to Catholicism — after he suggested Americans should care for family, communities and the country before caring about others.
«Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,» the pontiff wrote. «Worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations.»
POPE FRANCIS EXPOSES CONFIDENTIAL DETAILS ABOUT HIS ELECTION AND RELATIONSHIPS IN LENGTHY INTERVIEW
Pope Francis meets with bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians and pastoral workers in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 15, 2022. (Reuters/Pavel Mikheyev)
Pope Francis in 2015 became the first pontiff to ever address a Joint Meeting of Congress where he spoke on a range of topics including immigration, family, the death penalty, climate change, extremism, religious freedom and the refugee crisis.
He joined American bishops and urged American leaders to abolish capital punishment and said Congress has a «role to play» in addressing global warming.
In 2022 he questioned then President Biden’s conscience on abortion in an interview during which he described the commander-in-chief’s religious identity and views on abortion as incoherent. «A month after conception, the DNA of the fetus is already there and the organs are aligned. There is human life,» the pontiff said in the interview with Spanish-language outlet Univision.
He also weighed in on candidates Trump and Harris during the election campaign, where he bashed them both, saying, «Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,″ he said, according to the Associated Press.
Just weeks before President Trump’s second inauguration, he appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy to be the Archbishop of Washington. McElroy had been critical of Trump’s immigration policies during his first term as president.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936 to Italian immigrant parents in Argentina, Francis made history as the first pope from the Americas — as well as the first Jesuit to hold the office.
He was elected pope in 2013 after the almost unprecedented retirement of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Bergolio’s father, Mario, was an accountant for the railway industry, and his mother, Regina, was a homemaker and caregiver for her five children.
POPE FRANCIS FUELS NEW SPECULATION ON FUTURE OF PONTIFICATE
Pope Francis, born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is shown here with his family. From left to right, standing, brother Alberto Horacio, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Oscar Adrian and sister Marta Regina, sitting, sister Maria Elena, mother Regina and father Mario Jose Francisco. (API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Throughout his early years, the future pope worked a number of menial jobs. He labored briefly in the stocking factory where his father was an accountant before moving on to other opportunities, including jobs as a bar bouncer and janitor.
He eventually sought a career as a chemical technician, receiving a diploma in chemistry from the secondary school Escuela Técnica Industrial N° 27 Hipólito Yrigoyen. He also worked briefly in a food laboratory. However, his career in chemistry was short-lived.
He entered the priesthood at the Diocesan Seminary of Villa Devoto in Argentina. Francis was ordained a priest in 1969 and made his final profession with the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, in 1973. The same year, he was appointed as a provincial for the order.
His appointment as provincial was concurrent with the Dirty War, a period of intense state-led persecution of left-wing leaders and political dissidents. Bergolio experienced constant threats to his own safety as he worked to hide or aid in the escape of government targets, including many Catholic faithful.
Pope Francis’ is a fan of Argentina’s San Lorenzo Futbol Club. (API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
During that time, two Jesuit priests under his supervision were disappeared by the government, drugged and left barely alive in a field five months after their kidnapping. Pope Francis has said he was forced to negotiate with the regime for their release.
Bergolio would spend the next two decades bouncing from position to position at the direction of his superiors. He served as a professor of theology, seminary instructor, rector, doctoral student and parish priest.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II appointed Bergolio as titular Bishop of Auca and as an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. This was done at the request of Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who consecrated him to the episcopacy.
Bergoglio proved vital to the nation’s Catholic community, and he was quickly raised to the dignity of Coadjutor Archbishop of Buenos Aires, serving alongside Quarracino and taking over the archdiocese entirely after his death the following year.
Bergoglio was given the crimson hat of a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001.
In 2013, after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, Bergoglio was elected to the papacy, selecting the pontifical name «Francis» after St. Francis of Assisi — a choice that set the tone for the rest of his papacy.
POPE DERIDES BIDEN’S ABORTION VIEWS, CATHOLIC SELF-IDENTITY AS ‘INCOHERENCE’
Newly elected Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina appears on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after being elected by the conclave of cardinals, at the Vatican on March 13, 2013. White smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel chimney, and the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica rang out, signaling at the time that the Roman Catholic cardinals had elected a pope to succeed Benedict XVI. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)
Pope Francis’s teachings as a priest, bishop, cardinal and pope were deeply influenced by his Jesuit vocation — viewing each person as a unique creation of God, with whom they can have a personal relationship. His ministry and leadership were committed to keeping doors open and making the church approachable to the public.
It was not only American politics that he had strong opinions of.
He faced criticism for specific remarks he made against Israel’s military operation in Gaza, calling the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave «very serious and shameful.» During that same speech, he condemned the growth of antisemitism throughout the world, Reuters reported. He also called for an end to the war in Ukraine and expressed concerns over climate change.
In 2023, seemingly looking to strike a balance, he formally allowed Catholic priests to give same-sex couples a blessing, which was seen as being a radical shift in church policy, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Pope Francis is also remembered for living a life of intense simplicity, denying himself a lavish papal apartment in the Vatican upon his election, and opting instead for a two-room suite in the Domus Santa Marta, a residence built by Pope John Paul II.
Pope Francis celebrates the traditional rite of the washing of feet at the Casal del Marmo juvenile penitentiary on April 6, 2023, in Rome, Italy. On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis went to the outskirts of Rome to celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the Casal del Marmo juvenile penitentiary, where he carried out the traditional rite of the washing of the feet of twelve of the young people there. (Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
In contrast to his immediate predecessors, Pope Francis eschewed ornate robes or luxurious clothing. His outfit rarely consisted of more than a plain, white cassock tied with a papal fascia.
Pope Francis even dressed down his Ring of the Fisherman — a piece of gold jewelry worn by popes to signify their office — by having it made with silver and only wearing it for ceremonies.
Francis’s tenure continued the ongoing efforts to investigate decades of sexual abuse claims against priests across the world, including in the United States, with Francis vowing transparency in 2019.
«Transparency is now being implemented at the highest level,» said Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Archbishop of Malta and Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after Francis gave legal authorities access to documents about sexual abuse cases and abolished the «pontifical secret» of the cases.
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Pope Francis meets President Donald Trump during his first term in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace with his wife, Melania, his daughter, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. (Vatican/Pool/Galazka/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori via Getty Images)
He continued Benedict’s work to root malicious clerics out of the Church hierarchy «with the wrath of God,» appointing task forces and establishing victim aid groups.
Pope Francis proved frustrating for a wide variety of conservatives, liberals, traditionalists and progressives.
His gentle — at times vague and confusing — language on key social issues, such as sexuality and divorce, frustrated conservatives hoping for a more aggressive champion of Catholic moral teaching.
In July 2017, a group of Catholic clergy and academics sent Pope Francis a «Filial Correction» document alleging seven serious theological mistakes made by the pontiff in public statements. The document’s assertions proved controversial within the Catholic Church and the document was never explicitly addressed.
Conversely, his refusal to back down from traditional church teachings on abortion, gay marriage, women’s ordination and priestly celibacy frustrated progressives hoping for a more modern church.
Echoing his time as a prelate in Argentina, Pope Francis was at times criticized from both sides of the aisle for his heavy hand enforcing Catholic unity on national and international levels.
Traditionalists voiced intense opposition to his apostolic letter «Traditionis custodes,» which restricted the celebration of the traditional Latin mass in an attempt to squash increasingly separatist conservative movements within the Church.
Pope Francis meets with then-President Joe Biden during an audience at the Apostolic Palace on Oct. 29, 2021 in Vatican City. (Vatican Media via Vatican Pool)
He similarly shut down discussion of many social issues that progressives have sought to reform.
In 2019, Pope Francis told a nun asking him to approve the ordination of women that «if the Lord didn’t want a sacramental ministry for women, it can’t go forward,» adding, «We are Catholics, but if anyone wants to found another church they are free [to do so].»
The hyper-progressive leadership of the Catholic Church in Germany was a target of his ire after the country’s clerical leaders attempted an upheaval of traditional teachings regarding gender and sexuality. The Vatican issued a series of letters, approved by Pope Francis, accusing the German church of risking separation from the Catholic Communion.
The conflict with German bishops encapsulated his papacy’s recurring themes of authority and unity, best exemplified in a passage from his «Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany.»
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Pope Francis delivers a speech during the Holy Mass with newly appointed Cardinals. (Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In the letter, Pope Francis wrote, «The universal Church lives in and of the particular Churches, just as the particular Churches live and flourish in and from the universal Church. If they find themselves separated from the entire ecclesial body, they weaken, rot and die. Hence, the need always to ensure that communion with the whole body of the Church is alive and effective.»
Pope Francis visited dozens of countries, including the United States and Cuba in 2015, and went as far afield as Papua New Guinea, as well as visits to predominantly Muslim countries including Egypt, Morocco and Jordan.
Pope Francis struggled with health complications throughout his reign.
The pontiff dealt for many years with sciatica, a nerve condition that caused immense pain in his leg and at times hindered his ability to walk.
In 2021, Pope Francis was hospitalized for an intestinal surgery that removed 13 inches of his colon.
In March 2023, Francis was again taken to the hospital after experiencing intense chest pain and difficulty breathing. He was treated for a respiratory infection and released after antibiotic treatment.
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Pope Francis is welcomed as he arrives at the Apostolic Prefecture on Sept. 1, 2023 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. According to the Vatican, the trip was Pope Francis’s 43rd Apostolic Journey abroad and the 61st country he visited as Pope. (Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
In June of the same year, the pope was brought back for another abdominal surgery to repair an incisional hernia. He was released after making a full recovery.
He took a fall at his residence and suffered a contusion on his right arm in January 2025.
In February, he was once again hospitalized after a bout of bronchitis.
Following Pope Francis’ death, the Vatican has entered a time of sede vacante — in English, «empty seat.»
The Associated Press, Reuters and Fox News’ Annie Butterworth contributed to this report.
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What would you say if one body of Congress didn’t take a formal roll call vote on a major piece of legislation – yet passed it at 2:19 on a Friday morning?
Would you try to outdo your colleagues across the Capitol Rotunda with some Congressional chicanery of your own? Perhaps by passing an equally important version of the same bill – while officially sidestepping a direct up/down vote on the measure – at 11:28 p.m. on that same Friday night.
That’s what happened late last week. The Senate scored approval from all 100 senators to pass a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year – but did it on a voice vote at 2:19 a.m. Friday with only five senators in the chamber.
House Republicans scoffed at this. So they passed their own bill – to fund all of DHS – just before the witching hour Friday. But technically, the House didn’t even vote directly on the legislation itself. The House voted to approve a «rule» (which manages debate for bills). With adoption of that rule, the House «deemed» the underlying DHS funding measure as passed.
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The Senate managed to net the approval of 100 senators to pass a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of the fiscal year – but did it on a voice vote at 2:19 am Friday with only five senators in the chamber. (Emma Woodhead/Fox News Digital)
But despite all of this, the House and Senate weren’t aligned. They hadn’t approved the same bill. And despite the parliamentary antics, House Republicans then implored the Senate to pass the measure it approved Friday night on Monday morning – without a roll call vote and with just two senators in the chamber.
If you followed all of that, that is exactly what’s unfolded on Capitol Hill the past few days as lawmakers struggled to end the six-week Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
It was clear early Thursday evening that there wasn’t a path in the Sente to approve a partisan GOP bill to fund DHS after a lengthy roll call vote which started in the afternoon.
But something was afoot.
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Congress was staring at a 15-day recess for Easter and Passover on Friday. Failure to address the crisis now meant that lawmakers would leave town until the middle of April – extending the shutdown until then as airport lines swelled.
So Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., got to work on something which could pass the Senate – and potentially pass the House – before everyone abandoned Washington for the break.
Thune suggested earlier in the week that the Senate usually has to get «to Thursday» before frozen positions may begin to thaw. He was right. There was a corridor for the Senate to approve a bipartisan bill to tackle most of the funding crisis at DHS. So Thune’s charge late Thursday night and into the wee hours of Friday morning was not necessarily to persuade bipartisan senators to support the bill he was putting on the floor. But instead, Thune’s goal was to coax skeptical senators not to object and blow the whole thing up.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., hatched a plan for something that could pass the Senate before Washington was abandoned for the Easter Recess. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
There’s something called a «hotline» in the Senate. Any time the leadership wants to set up a series of votes, make particular amendments in order and perhaps allocate wedges of time to debate, it sends around a «hotline» to all 100 senators. If any senator objects, they let the leadership know. This streamlines the process ahead of time. It also ensures that senators aren’t blindsided by something called a «unanimous consent» request. Unanimous consent requests, or «UC’s,» happen all the time in the Senate.
One of the most powerful tools in the Senate is «unanimous consent.» If you obtain the «unanimous consent» of all 100 senators, you can make the sun rise in the west. But all it takes is one objection to block a UC – even if all other 99 senators agree.
The behind the scenes hotline takes care of this in advance. Any senator could object and block Thune’s proposal to fund most of DHS. But there shouldn’t be any problem if he cleared it with all 100 senators offstage in advance.
That’s why Thune went to the floor at 2:19 a.m. Friday. Not a single senator flagged his proposal. And so the South Dakota Republican went to the floor with a team of five senators – and passed the bill. Not by UC. But by something called a «voice vote. Those in favor shout yea. Those who oppose holler nay. The louder side wins. The Senate passed the bill. There was no roll call vote.
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So, this wasn’t something snuck by in the dead of night on the sly. If any senator had a reservation, they could have flagged it. Or better yet, come down to the floor at 2:19 a.m. and contested it. In short, there were 100 senators, 100 chiefs of staff, 100 legislative directors and 100 counsels who should have known about Thune’s plan. That’s a universe of at least 400 people – if not more. So, this wasn’t an episode of someone pulling a fast one.
By morning, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he «opposed this bill.» Same with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
Well, that’s fine. But no one objected nor pushed back on the hotline. No one went down to the floor to demand a roll call vote – or even argued that the Senate couldn’t do anything because there wasn’t a quorum present to conduct business. So anything said by Republican senators upset about the bill were simply academic or rhetorical objections. If those senators truly opposed the bill, they missed their opportunity to do something about it.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., even signaled support for the bill. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
It was thought that the House might take up the bill – reluctantly – the next day to end most of the shutdown and pay TSA workers. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., signaled support. So did Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. Granted, liberal Democrats might oppose the bill because there weren’t changes at ICE. But the bill probably would have passed with some Republicans and lots of Democrats. In fact, there may have been more Democratic yeas than Republican yeas. That would have been toxic for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., lost his gavel over moving a bipartisan bill to avoid a shutdown in the fall of 2023.
So by Friday afternoon, Johnson strenuously lodged his opposition to the Senate bill.
«Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,» said Johnson, noting that the Senate plan left out funding for ICE and the Border Patrol. «This gambit that was done last night is a joke. I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.»
In other words, were they not dialed in on the hotline?
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Yours truly questioned the Speaker, asking why he and Thune weren’t on the same page. Johnson accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. of being behind the bill. I pointed out that Thune «was the engineer behind this.»
«I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,» said Johnson.
«He didn’t have the accept it,» I countered.
«Let me answer the question, Chad,» sighed an exasperated Johnson.
So the House forged ahead and passed its own bill to fully fund DHS Friday night. Some House Republicans then expected the Senate to break custom and pass its bill – by unanimous consent – during a brief pro forma session Monday. In other words, House Republicans ripped the Senate for what it did early Friday morning. But those same House Republicans wanted senators to approve THEIR bill on Monday the same way they criticized the Senate for passing its bill on Friday.
Note that there was no hotline for the House bill at that point.
«We’d love to see them do that,» said Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., on Friday.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said he «wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer» behind the bill. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
But Democrats dispatched a watchdog to guard the floor against any possible GOP chicanery as the Senate met for 31 seconds with meager attendance.
The Senate gaveled in. The Senate gaveled out. Nothing happened.
«I was there to object,» said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. «I was here just in case there were some shenanigans.»
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., called it «insane» that Senate Republicans «didn’t even try» to pass the House bill. But the lone Senate Republican on duty said the presence of Coons doomed that to failure.
«We don’t have consent yet,» said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who presided over the session. «They declined. Obviously Sen. Coons was there to do that.»
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But by Wednesday, the bill which Johnson trashed Friday afternoon was on its way to passage. Despite a sea of opposition from conservative Republicans, the House would accept the Senate bill and end most of the DHS shutdown. The Earth shifted. President Trump was fine with this. Suddenly, Johnson and Thune were on the same page.
So the Republican House would eat what the Senate originally cooked up early Friday morning. And the House would likely approve it with lots of Republicans spread around the country. But like Senate Republicans early Friday morning, no one would likely return to block it.
And by now, this wasn’t something engineered in the dead of night that only 400 people knew about. The entire country was more than aware what happened.
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El ejército estadounidense intensifica sus esfuerzos para obtener un mayor acceso a Groenlandia, una clara señal de que el interés del presidente Donald Trump por la enorme isla ártica no ha disminuido.
Estados Unidos está negociando con Dinamarca el acceso a tres bases adicionales en Groenlandia –incluidas dos previamente abandonadas por los estadounidenses–, lo que supondría la primera expansión estadounidense allí en décadas, según un alto mando del Pentágono, el general Gregory Guillot.
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Guillot, jefe del Comando Norte de Estados Unidos, declaró ante los legisladores en una audiencia del Congreso a mediados de marzo que el ejército quería “un mayor acceso a diferentes bases en toda Groenlandia, dada la creciente amenaza y la importancia estratégica de Groenlandia”.
“Estoy trabajando con nuestro departamento y con otros para intentar desarrollar más puertos y más aeródromos, lo que proporcionará más opciones a nuestro secretario y al presidente, en caso de que los necesitemos en el Ártico”, añadió Guillot.
La solicitud coloca a Dinamarca en una situación delicada. Groenlandia es un territorio semiautónomo que forma parte del reino danés desde hace más de 300 años. Trump, por su parte, se ha obsesionado con adquirir Groenlandia y, durante meses, amenazó con usar la fuerza antes de ceder en enero.
El Gobierno danés ha invocado un pacto de defensa danés-estadounidense de 1951 para hacer frente a las amenazas de Trump y ha señalado que Estados Unidos ya tiene un amplio acceso militar.
Los funcionarios estadounidenses ahora utilizan ese mismo acuerdo para trazar planes de expansión. Los expertos afirman que Dinamarca puede hacer poco para frenarlos, aunque la confianza entre Estados Unidos y Dinamarca se haya visto sacudida, si no es que rota.
La capitana de corbeta Teresa Meadows, portavoz del Comando Norte de Estados Unidos, afirmó que los planificadores militares tenían en el punto de mira las localidades de Narsarsuaq, en el sur de Groenlandia, que cuenta con un puerto de aguas profundas, y Kangerlussuaq, en el suroeste de Groenlandia, que ya dispone de una larga pista capaz de recibir aviones de gran tamaño.
Ambos lugares habían sido bases estadounidenses durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la Guerra Fría, pero fueron cedidos a las autoridades danesas y groenlandesas después de que los estadounidenses abandonaran Narsarsuaq en la década de 1950 y Kangerlussuaq en la de 1990. Gran parte de su infraestructura militar ha sido desmantelada, aunque ambos emplazamientos aún cuentan con pequeños aeropuertos en funcionamiento.
Los funcionarios del Pentágono no especificaron cuántas tropas se enviarían a la isla. Guillot indicó que el ejército necesita bases para soldados de operaciones especiales y “capacidades marítimas”.
Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, cuando Dinamarca fue ocupada por los nazis, Estados Unidos ayudó a defender Groenlandia. Envió miles de soldados y abrió más de una decena de bases. Mantuvo muchas de ellas operativas durante la Guerra Fría. En la actualidad, solo queda una base activa: una remota instalación de defensa antimisiles con unos pocos cientos de soldados.
Trump parece decidido a cambiar eso. Sus amenazas del año pasado de “conseguir” Groenlandia, “de un modo u otro”, desencadenaron una crisis en Europa. Esa crisis se ha calmado, por ahora, ya que el presidente se ha visto absorbido por la guerra en Irán. Pero muchos europeos, incluida la líder de Dinamarca, Mette Frederiksen, temen que Trump no haya renunciado a adquirir la gigantesca isla cubierta de hielo, lo que podría dejar a Dinamarca acorralada de nuevo.
Hasta ahora, las conversaciones sobre la ampliación de la base parecen ir sobre ruedas. Guillot citó el acuerdo de 1951 durante su testimonio ante el Congreso, y cuando los legisladores demócratas le preguntaron si Dinamarca o Groenlandia habían puesto algún obstáculo, respondió que no.
“Han sido socios muy, muy comprensivos”, dijo el general.
A diferencia de lo que ha sugerido Trump, Guillot dijo: “En realidad no necesitamos un nuevo tratado. Es muy completo y, francamente, muy favorable para nuestras operaciones o posibles operaciones en Groenlandia”.
Leé también: Detrás del vértigo que generó Trump con su reclamo de Groenlandia, hay una estrategia que empezó a fallar
El plan de expansión sigue envuelto en el secreto. El Departamento de Estado se negó a emitir comentarios, al igual que el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Dinamarca y la oficina del primer ministro de Groenlandia. Jens-Frederik Nielsen, primer ministro de Groenlandia, junto a la premier danesa Mette Frederiksen en una conferencia de prensa en Copenhague el 13 de enero de 2026. (Foto: Tom Little/REUTERS)
No está claro cómo reaccionarán los groenlandeses, la mayoría de los cuales son indígenas inuits. El sentimiento antiestadounidense ha ido en aumento en la isla, que cuenta con menos de 60.000 habitantes. A principios de este año estallaron protestas contra Trump y varios groenlandeses entrevistados expresaron su preocupación por la llegada de más tropas estadounidenses.
“Mucha gente no quiere más militares en Groenlandia, pero si eso es lo que deciden, no hay nada que podamos hacer”, dijo Anso Lauritzen, que dirige un centro de trineos tirados por perros en el oeste de Groenlandia.
Agnetha Mikka Petersen, una residente jubilada de Nuuk, la capital, dijo que la perspectiva de una mayor presencia estadounidense la hace sentir “inquieta”.
“No me gusta nada”, afirmó.
El acuerdo de defensa de 1951 y su actualización de 2004 otorgan a los estadounidenses una posición de fuerza. Antes de realizar cualquier cambio importante en su presencia militar, se supone que Estados Unidos debe “consultar e informar” a las autoridades de Dinamarca y Groenlandia. Los expertos afirman que eso significa que Estados Unidos puede hacer prácticamente lo que quiera y comunicárselo a los daneses y groenlandeses más tarde.
“Dinamarca y Groenlandia pueden, en principio, decir que no a Estados Unidos, pero en la práctica nunca se hace”, afirmó Ulrik Pram Gad, investigador sénior del Instituto Danés de Estudios Internacionales. “Porque si lo hacen, Estados Unidos puede presentar el control de Dinamarca y Groenlandia sobre la isla como un riesgo para la seguridad y argumentar que él mismo debería asumir el control”.
*Por Jeffrey Gettleman, corresponsal internacional radicado en Londres y que cubre sucesos mundiales. Ha trabajado para el Times por más de 20 años.
Eric Schmitt es corresponsal de seguridad nacional para el Times. Ha informado sobre asuntos militares y de antiterrorismo de Estados Unidos durante más de tres décadas.
The New York Times, groenlandia
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Behind the scenes of Congress’ eleventh-hour rush to fund the DHS
El hijo de Rosatti quedó primero para ser juez gracias a un último paso de los concursos que ahora la Corte quiere revisar
Calleri, otro festejo y entre los goleadores del Brasileirao
El Gobierno cambia su propuesta de reforma: endurece penas para delitos comunes, pero no para los casos de corrupción
Nuevas críticas de Marcela Pagano contra los Milei: “Karina es la que gobierna”, aseguró
Dos jubiladas que le habrían prestado dinero a Manuel Adorni negaron conocerlo
Quiénes son las dos acreedoras del préstamo con el que Adorni compró su departamento en Caballito
POLITICA2 días agoDos jubiladas que le habrían prestado dinero a Manuel Adorni negaron conocerlo
- POLITICA2 días ago
Quiénes son las dos acreedoras del préstamo con el que Adorni compró su departamento en Caballito
- POLITICA18 horas ago
El Gobierno reevalúa la estrategia de comunicación por el caso Adorni y mide el impacto en la imagen de Milei
