Donald Trump Jr is heading for Greenland, two weeks after his father repeated his desire for the US to take control of the autonomous Danish territory.
The US president-elect’s son said he was going as a tourist on a “very long, personal, day-trip”, to talk to people, and had no meetings planned with government officials.
Ahead of his son’s trip, Donald Trump revived a controversy he ignited last month when he said “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for US national security.
During his first term as president, Trump had expressed an interest in buying the Arctic island. He has been rebuffed by Greenland’s leaders on both occasions.
“We are not for sale and we will not be for sale,” the island’s Prime Minister, Mute Bourup Egede, said in December. “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland.”
With a population of 57,000, Greenland has wide-ranging autonomy, but its economy is largely dependent on subsidies from Copenhagen and it remains part of the kingdom of Denmark.
Egede had been due to meet King Frederik in Copenhagen on Wednesday, but the meeting was postponed because of what the Greenland prime minister referred to as “calendar gymnastics”.
The Danish government has said little about the president-elect’s son’s visit, pointing out that it was not an official trip.