Egede’s comment comes after the incoming president announced that he wanted to revisit the idea of buying the semi-autonomous land from Denmark. During his first term in the White House, Trump expressed a desire to make a “large real estate deal” because “strategically” it would be “very nice.”

Denmark is bolstering defense spending in Greenland, said a Danish official Tuesday who called the announcement's timing with President-elect Trump's suggestion that the U.S. should own the territory an "irony of fate.