Trump Jr plans surprise visit to Greenland after talk of US purchase

By Sara Sjolin

  Donald Trump Jr. will travel to Greenland this week in a surprise visit to the Arctic territory, just weeks after his father, US President-elect Donald Trump, rekindled the idea of buying the island from Denmark. 

A delegation arrived in the capital Nuuk on Monday, and Trump Jr. himself will land on Tuesday, the head of Greenland’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Mininnguaq Kleist, told Bloomberg News. 

 

The visit is “private” and Trump has scheduled no official meetings, Kleist said. Trump Jr. does not have an official role within his father’s incoming administration.

 

Still, the president-elect seized on the trip to again needle Greenland over his longtime aspirations to bring the territory under US control.

 

 

“Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World.”

 

Trump Jr.’s surprise trip to Nuuk coincides with Greenland Premier Múte B. Egede postponing a planned meeting with Denmark’s King Frederik X on Wednesday in Copenhagen. Kleist said the timing of the canceled meeting with the king and Trump Jr.’s visit is “pure coincidence.”

 

Egede has long pushed for Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark, to gain independence, and stepped up his rhetoric during his New Year speech. In the remarks, he expressed a need for Greenland to cooperate with neighboring states, saying “our cooperation with other countries, and our trade relations, cannot only continue to happen via Denmark.”

 

Relations between the US and Nuuk were thrust into focus again last month when Donald Trump hinted he still wants to buy Greenland, saying that US ownership and control of the island is an “absolute necessity” for national security. Egede said the island is “not for sale and will never be for sale.”

 

Elon Musk, a close adviser to Trump, on Monday also joined the conversation, saying in a post on X that “the people of Greenland should decide their future and I think they want to be part of America!”