Donald Trump Jr.’s brief visit to Greenland on Wednesday wasn’t all smiles and MAGA hats — some locals even gave the president’s son the middle finger, according to a senior Greenlandic politician.
Pipaluk Lynge, an MP from Greenland’s largest party, told Politico on Thursday that journalists were kept away from the U.S. President-elect’s son and were not allowed to ask him any questions.
“His welcome was not entirely warm,” Lynge told the publication. “People were curious, but some took pictures giving him [the] finger at the airport … Some wrote on Facebook: yankee go home.”
Still, President-elect Donald Trump’s Truth Social feed showed smiling people wearing red MAGA hats, as he posted that his son’s reception “has been great.”
Lynge told Politico, “It was all staged to make it seem like we — the Greenlandic people — were MAGA and love to be a part of the USA.”
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Trump Jr. arrived in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, on Wednesday on a “Trump” branded plane as part of a “personal” goodwill visit where he told the locals, “We’re going to treat you well.”
The elder Trump has seriously proposed acquiring the mineral-rich Danish territory in the interest of U.S. national security, but the reaction from local officials has been defiant.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has called Trump’s fixation on acquiring the Arctic nation “absurd,” and reiterated this week that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”
She added, “There is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either.”
Earlier this week, Trump declared he wouldn’t exclude using economic or military force to take territory, prompting Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede to declare Trump’s proposal was just a distraction.
“While others, including Danes and Americans, are entitled to their opinions, we should not be caught up in the hysteria and external pressures distract us from our path,” he said.
Lynge addressed Trump directly in the Politico article, saying, “We know how they treat the Inuit in Alaska. Make that great before trying to invade us.”