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King Frederik X and Queen Mary of Denmark on a state visit to Estonia last month (Ida Marie Odgaard via AFP/Getty Images)
Danish King Frederik’s upcoming trip to Greenland will send dual messages: a morale boost to locals and a show of unity aimed squarely at the White House.
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Denmark plays a royal flush in Trump Greenland sagaDenmark plays a royal flush in Trump Greenland saga
When Danish King Frederik touches down in Nuuk next week, flag-waving Greenlanders are set to give him a warm reception to match the territory’s unusually high winter temperatures. As snowstorms pummel parts of Denmark, Greenland’s capital has received barely enough white powder “to build an igloo for a mouse,” one local told me.
The three-day tour will be King Frederik’s third trip to the Arctic island since he took over the top job from his mother, Margrethe, who abdicated in January 2024. “The morale of the Greenlanders must, of course, be kept up, and it is a pleasure for me to meet with as many as possible at eye level,” he told reporters during a recent state visit to Lithuania.
Even though NATO can stop breathing into a paper bag because US President Donald Trump has seemingly backed down from his European tariff threat and the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers avoided a "Zelensky moment" during talks with US Vice President JD Vance, Denmark remains on alert. “The diplomatic track is, at least for now, back on track,” Rasmus Leander Nielsen from Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland) said, referring to discussions about Greenland’s future moving from the media and social platforms to the meeting room.
Technical talks have officially kicked off. Greenland and Denmark must find something shiny (perhaps dust off the existing 1951 deal) so “Trump can lose in a way that allows him to claim a success,” one long-time Greenland-based political observer said.
Trump’s antics have boosted Greenland’s fledgling tourism industry, particularly with American visitors.
While the world awaits an outcome, public displays of solidarity towards Greenland are coming thick and fast. Cue a small buildup of European military personnel, visits by British MPs and the Canadian governor general, as well as Paris and Ottawa opening new consulates in Nuuk.
The timing of King Frederik’s Danish government-approved visit is thus no coincidence.
“There will be pictures of Greenlanders warmly welcoming King Frederik with flags and kaffemik (coffee and cake). The pictures will reach American media and Trump will see them,” says Danish author Gitte Redder.
“The Danish royal family has always played a strong role in being a bridge that brings Greenland and Denmark together.”
In 1921, when the Norwegians questioned Denmark’s rights to unpopulated parts of Greenland, King Christian X (the current king’s great-grandfather) and Queen Alexandrine made the first royal visit to Greenland to shore up the country’s colonial hold over the island.
Redder, author of multiple books about the Danish royal family, including the recently published Greenlanders’ Royal House, says former Queen Margrethe had at least 20 private and official visits to Greenland over her 52-year reign.
Queen Margrethe also helped with fashion diplomacy, of a kind. The global seal fur market collapsed in the 1970s and 1980s following a Western boycott after French actress Brigitte Bardot conflated the clubbing of baby seals in Canada with Greenland’s traditional seal hunting industry, Redder said. Queen Margrethe’s decision to continue wearing her seal fur coats as an act of solidarity was a point Greenlanders never forgot.
Her son’s bond with Greenland also cuts deep.
King Frederik was 14-years-old when he visited for the first time with his parents in 1982. In his early 30s, he joined a four-month sled dog expedition. He and his Australian-born wife Queen Mary gave their youngest children, twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, the Greenlandic middle names of Ivalo and Minik. The four visited Greenland in 2024.
“Greenland has a big place in the King’s heart,” Redder said. “He wants to show up and give a signal to the Greenlanders, but also to President Trump and the White House, that we are the united kingdom of Denmark. Greenland and Denmark are together no matter what.”
Symbols of Greenland have grown in prominence. There are plenty of ice and sun flags at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics as Greenlandic brother and sister biathletes Ukaleq Slettemark and Sondre Slettemark make the kingdom proud.
A Danish delegation with a Greenland flag during the women's biathlon 15km individual event during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games on 11 February 2026 (Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)
For the first time, in Copenhagen this January, Greenlandic flags were also seen flying on poles around the city.
The show of unity cuts through. A January survey of 610 Greenlanders by Danish pollster Sune Steffen Hansen found 76% of those surveyed said it would not be an advantage for Greenland to join the United States – 17% were unsure and 8% were favourable.
While the diplomatic tightrope walk continues for Greenland and Denmark, there are at least two domestic silver linings. Trump’s antics have boosted Greenland’s fledgling tourism industry, particularly with American visitors. And the political parties of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (Social Democrats) and the fist-bumping, polar bear cufflink-wearing Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Moderates) have experienced an uptick in voter support according to a recent poll of 1012 Danes. Frederiksen’s party looked on the nose after dismal losses in November’s municipal elections, where they lost the mayorship of Copenhagen for the first time in 100 years.
A national election is due before November and now there are rumblings that Denmark could go to the polls as early as March.
Enough intrigue ahead to fill another series of the Danish political drama Borgen.
About the author
Lisa Martin
Lisa Martin is an Australian journalist based in Copenhagen. She is a four-time Walkley Award finalist.
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