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.

Since his first term, President-elect Donald Trump has insisted that the United States should purchase Greenland - to the bewilderment of aides asked to investigate such a possibility, and despite repeated denials by top officials in Greenland and Denmark, of which the island is an autonomous territory, that it would ever be for sale at any price.

The president-elect is renewing calls he made during his first term for the U.S. to buy Greenland, the ice-covered semi-autonomous Danish territory, and mostly Inuit