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The Danish king has changed the country’s royal coat of arms to display symbols of Greenland and the Faroe Islands more prominently – in an apparent rebuke to Donald Trump.
King Frederik has made a clear show of his intention to retain the territory within the kingdom of Denmark – and so continue to control its foreign and security policy – after US president-elect Donald Trump expressed his desire to buy Greenland for the US.
Previous royal coats of arms have shown three crowns, a representation of the Kalmar Union between Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
In the new version, the crowns have been replaced by a polar bear and ram, which symbolise Greenland and the Faroe Islands, in what appears to be a rebuke of Mr Trump’s desires to take control of the former. Previously, the ram and the polar bear have occupied smaller slots.
The royal household said the three crowns had been removed “as it is no longer relevant”. In his first speech of 2025, King Frederik said: “We are all united and each of us committed for the kingdom of Denmark. From the Danish minority in South Schleswig – which is even situated outside the kingdom – and all the way to Greenland. We belong together.”
It marks the fourth time since 1819 that the royal arms has been changed, the previous tweaks coming in 1903, 1948 and 1972.
The change comes amid a row involving Mr Trump, over Greenland and its relations with Denmark. Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that US ownership and control of Greenland is an “absolute necessity”.
But he was rebuked by the territory’s prime minister Múte Egede, who said in a statement in late December: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
Mr Trump is not the first US president to express a desire to buy Greenland, with the first push to purchase the territory coming in 1867 from the then-secretary of state, William Seward.
The territory has been politically and culturally tied to Denmark for over a century, and the population of Greenland has never shown a serious desire to join the US – despite a limited American military presence on the island, which hosts one of its vital early-warning missile defense systems.
