Jeff Landry, Donald Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, arrived on Sunday night to the Arctic island to attend an economic forum to which he was not invited. “I am here to build relationships, to make friends,” he said to the Danish public broadcaster after landing in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital. After meeting with Landry, who is also the governor of Louisiana, on Monday, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen insisted that the island “is not for sale” and stated that there was “no sign that anything has changed” in the United States’ plans to take control of the gigantic Danish island.
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“We believe there are advances and, on Greenland’s part, we are focused on finding a solution that is good for all of us and, most importantly, that there are no threats of annexation, takeover, or a purchase of Greenland and the Greenlandic people,” Nielsen emphasized after his meeting with Trump’s special envoy, which was also attended by Greenland’s Foreign Minister, Mute Egede. “They requested a meeting and we explained our situation and our position, and that we have some red lines: we will not sell Greenland, it will always belong to us,” said Egede, who was prime minister of the Arctic island between 2021 and 2025.
Landry, appointed by Trump as special envoy to Greenland last December, made no statement after the meeting. The day before, the Louisiana governor said he had spoken with the U.S. president before making his first trip to the Danish island and that he was asked to make “as many friends as possible” during his stay in Nuuk.
The Greenland Business Confederation informed local media a few weeks ago that Landry was among the nearly 500 attendees at Future Greenland, a business conference about the island, but that he had not received any official invitation, he had simply purchased a ticket to attend on Tuesday and Wednesday as a listener.
Landry, who will also inaugurate the new headquarters of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk this Thursday, had been invited by a private individual to attend a traditional sled dog race on the island last March, but the invitation was ultimately withdrawn after criticism from the organization.
Trump’s expansionist aspirations over Greenland have been a constant since he returned to the White House just over a year ago. After threatening to take control of the island, even not ruling out the use of military force, tensions eased at the end of March — after six European countries sent small contingents to the island in support of Denmark — and the crisis was redirected to the diplomatic path. Since late January, when Trump announced a preliminary agreement with NATO to strengthen security in the Arctic, U.S. representatives have met five times in Washington with Danish and Greenlandic delegations to reach a negotiated solution to the conflict. Landry has not participated in any of those meetings in the U.S. capital.
Vetoing investments from Russia and China
The Pentagon intends to open three new military bases in southern Greenland, a claim that aligns with the current defense agreement between Washington and Copenhagen. However, the Trump administration demands sovereignty over the territory occupied by the future bases, a demand that Danish and Greenlandic representatives are unwilling to accept. The New York Times published on Monday that the White House intends to modify the 1951 agreement to guarantee the indefinite presence of U.S. troops in Greenland, even if the island manages to become independent from the Kingdom of Denmark in the future.
The American newspaper states, according to sources from the three parties involved in the negotiations, that Washington also demands an effective veto power over future investments from Russia and China on the island of 57,000 inhabitants, the largest on the planet. Trump’s representatives have also insisted in meetings held in the U.S. capital that some type of cooperation be agreed upon to exploit Greenland’s vast natural resources, according to The New York Times.
During the Cold War, there were up to 10,000 U.S. soldiers in Greenland spread across 17 bases, which were gradually closed as the Arctic’s importance in the struggle with the Soviet Union diminished. The United States today maintains only the Pituffik space base in the northwest of the island.
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