President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry, touched down in Nuuk on Sunday, saying he arrived “simply to build relationships,” and to “see if there are opportunities” to expand them.
The U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, arrived on Monday to take part in this week’s Future Greenland 2026 conference. Landry is also expected to attend.
President Donald Trump has suggested the U.S. should take over Greenland. The New York Times reports that negotiators from the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark, have been in talks about Greenland’s future. Greenland and Denmark have been adamant that the U.S. cannot acquire Greenland.
The vast majority of Greenlanders, who are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, have said they do not want to be acquired by the United States. Denmark has also stated Greenland’s future is not up for negotiation, and several European leaders have stressed that the United States cannot interfere with Greenland — with at least one, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, warning that if Trump were to engage in a military incursion it would mean the end of NATO.
“I would like to make a deal,” Trump told reporters in January.
“You know, the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way we’re gonna do it the hard way,” the president said.
In March, Danish public broadcaster DR, via a Google translation, reported that Trump’s remarks, when he threatened that the U.S. could acquire Greenland the easy way or the hard way, had accelerated the governments’ plans.
Denmark had formed an alliance with France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, flew heavily armed Danish F-35 fighter jets and troops to Greenland with bombs to blow up its own runways if necessary to prevent U.S. aircraft from landing, and prepared for casualties by flying bags of blood to the autonomous territory of roughly 56,000 residents.
On Monday, according to video posted by Orla Joelsen, a native Greenlander and a prison official in Nuuk, the GOP governor spoke with some local children.
“If you come to Louisiana,” Governor Landry says in the video, “and you come to the governor’s mansion — all the chocolate chip cookies you can eat.”
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