The son of President-elect Donald Trump Jr. is in it today, shortly after his father re-expressed interest in the area.
He arrived by private jet at about 12:50 p.m. (local time), according to a live feed from Nuuk airport, for what he and officials described as a private visit.
“I’m not buying Greenland”
“No, I’m not buying Greenland. It’s funny, I’m actually going to take a very long personal day trip to Greenland,” Trump Jr. said on his podcast Monday, adding that he was visiting as a tourist.
President-elect Trump, who takes office on January 20, had earlier praised the island on social media platform Truth Social, promising to “Make Greenland Great Again!”
“Greenland is an incredible place and people will benefit tremendously if and when it becomes part of our Nation,” he wrote.
Trump is not the first US president to propose buying Greenland. The idea was first floated by the nation’s 17th president, Andrew Johnson, during the 1860s.
“It is not for sale”, the reaction of the prime minister of Greenland
Greenland Prime Minister Mute Eggende has said the island is not for sale, but in his New Year’s speech he stepped up the push for independence from Denmark.
“Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” declares the Prime Minister of Denmark
For her part, her Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, declared that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders”.
“As (Greenland’s) Prime Minister Mute Egende said, Greenland is not for sale,” Frederiksen told TV2, while noting that “the US is our closest ally.”
The change of coat of arms by the king of Denmark
At the same time, the Danish king shocked some historians by changing the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature Greenland and the Faroe Islands – in what was also seen as a snub to Donald Trump.
Less than a year after succeeding his mother Queen Margrethe – sister of former Queen Anne Maria of Greece – after she abdicated on New Year’s Eve 2023, King Frederik made a clear statement of intent to keep the autonomous Danish territory and former colony within of the kingdom of Denmark.
For 500 years, Denmark’s previous royal coats of arms featured three crowns, the symbol of the Kalmar Union between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, which Denmark led between 1397 and 1523. They are also an important symbol of neighboring Sweden. But in the updated version, the crowns have been removed and replaced with a larger polar bear and a larger, compared to before, ram to symbolize Greenland and the Faroe Islands respectively.
The move comes at a time of heightened tension over Greenland and its relations with Denmark, which still controls its foreign and security policy.
Source: Reuters, BBC
