In the tiny Iowa town of Elk Horn, Danish and American flags flap side by side above Main Street. A bakery sells kringles and other Danish pastries. Down the block, a working windmill towers over the prairie.
Kitchens here are stocked with family recipes for dishes most Americans can’t pronounce: frikadeller (Danish meatballs), æbleskiver (Danish pancake balls) and medisterpølse (Danish sausages).
This town of about 600 people and the nearby city of Kimballton are known as the “Danish Villages,” the largest rural Danish American settlement in the United States. It’s an American farming community built by Danish immigrants more than a century ago that's still defined by that dual allegiance.
“A lot of us have more relatives in Denmark than we do here in the United States,” said Lisa Steen Riggs, 70, a longtime community leader.
But that affinity has been tested of late, creating a subtle tension in a town where many Danish Americans also express steadfast loyalty to President Donald Trump, whose demands for control of Greenland have strained the long-standing alliance between Denmark and the United States.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared to step back from the brink, saying at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he would not use military force to seize Greenland. Still, he repeated that the U.S. wants “right, title and ownership” of the Arctic territory, which is self-governing but remains part of the kingdom of Denmark. He later announced what he called a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland with NATO allies — though the plan’s contours remain unclear as Danish leaders insist the sprawling, sparsely populated island is not for sale.
In deep-red Elk Horn, some residents said they have been baffled by Trump’s fixation on Greenland and his willingness to disparage Denmark, one of America’s oldest and closest allies. Trump carried the rural Iowa precinct that includes Elk Horn handily in 2024, winning about 68% of the vote.
“People voted for him because of immigration. People voted for him maybe because of the economy. This wasn’t really brought up,” said Steen Riggs, who for decades ran Elk Horn’s historic Danish Windmill and its gift shop until her retirement a few years ago.
For many families here, Denmark is not an abstract ally but a place where siblings, cousins and grandparents still live — a reality that has made Trump’s threats especially unsettling.
“People are hurt,” Steen Riggs said of her family members overseas. “I don’t want my relatives in Denmark to be scared of us.”
Just a short walk from the windmill, that same tension surfaces more quietly over coffee and pastries at The Kringle Man, a bakery and coffee shop run by James Uren, a longtime Elk Horn resident who describes himself as a card-carrying Republican. Uren’s kringles — flaky, almond-topped Danish pastries — draw locals and tourists alike, but political debate is discouraged.
“We have a rule in my shop,” said Uren, 68. “No politics. That ruins friendships and business as fast as anything.”
Even so, he said Trump’s focus on Greenland has been hard to ignore and hard to understand, including among people who otherwise support him.
“The one comment I heard at the coffee table was, ‘We don’t need to own it. Denmark will give us everything we want,’” Uren said, referring to a 1951 agreement that grants the U.S. latitude to operate military bases in Greenland. “I don’t understand why we need to own the country.”
In a statement to NBC News, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended Trump’s campaign for Greenland, calling him a visionary leader who “was not elected to preserve the status quo.”
“As the president said, NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the United States, and Greenlanders would be better served if protected by the United States from modern threats in the Arctic region,” Kelly said.
For longtime residents of Elk Horn, confusion over Trump's approach collides with a history in which Denmark and the U.S. were partners, not adversaries — a legacy that shapes how the town understands itself.
Danish immigration to this part of the country dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when families left Denmark in waves and settled across the Midwest and the Great Plains, drawn by farmland that looked and felt familiar. Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin became hubs of Danish American life, places where immigrants could farm, build churches and preserve customs that connected them to their country of origin.
Elk Horn grew out of that movement, shaped by families who arrived with shared language, food and traditions. Back when telephone companies still distributed phonebooks, Elk Horn’s was filled with Andersens, Petersens, Christensens, Clausens and Madsens.
That connection was underscored more than a decade ago when Danish filmmakers traveled to Elk Horn to produce two documentaries about the community. The films aired widely in Denmark and cemented the town’s reputation as a living outpost of Danish culture, helping turn Elk Horn into a destination for Danish tourists curious to see what some dubbed “Little Denmark on the Prairie.”
But by then, the town’s ties to the old country had already begun to fray, worn down by the same economic and demographic shifts that have reshaped much of rural America — forces that also helped fuel Trump’s rise. About half the town’s population claims Danish ancestry, a percentage that has slowly shrunk as younger generations leave for opportunities elsewhere. As older residents die off, town leaders worry Danish traditions are fading with them.
Trump’s saber rattling over Greenland has brought a new challenge to the community, said Erik Andersen, the interim executive director of the Elk Horn-based Museum of Danish America. Founded in the 1980s, the museum preserves the story of Danish immigration while serving as a cultural bridge between Denmark and the U.S.
“You don’t need to bully one of your longtime allies,” Andersen said, noting that Denmark and America have worked side by side for more than two centuries, including in Greenland. While the museum remains nonpolitical, he said the rhetoric runs counter to the cooperative history many Danish Americans were raised with.
“Our position really is that it needs to de-escalate and we need to be cooperative,” Andersen said.
Those concerns aren’t merely symbolic. Shaun Sayres, a transplant from New York who took over running the Danish Windmill after Steen Riggs retired, said the controversy threatens the site’s day-to-day operations. The functioning 178-year-old grain mill, transported in pieces from Denmark and reassembled in Elk Horn a half-century ago, operates as a living museum, offering tours and demonstrations. Keeping it running depends heavily on the gift shop stocked with imported Danish and other Scandinavian goods.
Sayres worries the tone of the Greenland dispute could discourage Danish tourists. And already some of the gift shop’s suppliers have told him they’re no longer going to sell to the U.S., he said, citing uncertainty around Trump’s trade policy. On Wednesday Trump backed off plans to impose new tariffs on several European allies, including Denmark, for resisting his push to acquire Greenland.
“That’s the biggest existential threat to us,” Sayres said. “The gift shop has been the backbone of funding the organization for decades.”
Steen Riggs has felt those ripples beyond Elk Horn through her work with the Rebild National Park Society, a century-old organization founded by Danish immigrants to celebrate the relationship between the two countries. Each year, the group hosts a Fourth of July celebration in Denmark — a symbol of the nation’s deep admiration for America.
This year, she said, organizers have decided to scale back the celebration, uncertain how ongoing tensions will shape the mood on both sides of the Atlantic.
Steen Riggs said she was relieved to hear Trump step back from threats of force, but she remains uneasy. She hopes that diplomacy will prevail and that the bonds tying Elk Horn to Denmark will endure.
“Presidents come and go,” she said. “But our friendship remains.”
