Denmark’s King Frederik X has arrived in Greenland for a visit intended to show solidarity with the semi-autonomous Danish territory, which US President Donald Trump has said he wants to take over due to its strategic Arctic location.
The monarch’s trip to the island’s capital of Nuuk follows a visit to Copenhagen earlier this week by Greenland’s new Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Frederik told Danish media that he was happy to be in Greenland and said his visit had no specific mission. Nielsen told reporters that Frederik’s love for Greenland could not be questioned, adding that the monarch is well-liked on the island.
Denmark’s king is set to meet with the new Greenlandic government this week, and attend a traditional “kaffemik,” or coffee break, where he will speak with locals.
Bad weather forced him to cancel a planned trip on Wednesday to Station Nord — the island’s northernmost military and scientific station — as well as a meeting with an elite Danish special forces dogsled unit that patrols the most remote parts of Greenland.
Denmark’s royal family traditionally makes annual trips to the island and Frederik visited Greenland last July, months after he took the Danish throne after his mother’s abdication.
The latest trip comes after US Vice President JD Vance visited a remote US military base on the island earlier this month and accused Denmark of underinvesting in it.
Trump has repeatedly expressed an interest in mineral-rich Greenland and has not ruled out taking the island by military force, even though Denmark is a NATO ally of the US.
Political parties in Greenland — which has been leaning toward eventual independence from Denmark for years — recently agreed to form a broad-based new coalition government in the face of Trump’s designs on the territory.
The world’s biggest island — which is home to about 57,000 people — was a Danish colony until it became a self-governing territory of Denmark in 1979.
Since 2009, Greenland has held the right to declare independence through a referendum.
