Danish officials have welcomed a US decision to confine a planned visit to Greenland to a military base.

It follows a spat between Denmark and the White House amid plans for the visit and US President Donald Trump’s interest in the island.

Denmark’s prime minister said on Tuesday that a scheduled visit by Usha Vance, the wife of US Vice President JD Vance, to a popular dog-sled race in Greenland this week was part of an “unacceptable pressure” on the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

On Tuesday, the White House announced the delegation would instead be headed by JD Vance himself but that it would only visit the US Space Base at Pituffik in northern Greenland and not the dog-sled race, a big annual sporting event.

“This is clearly a de-escalation,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said.

“I think it’s very positive that the Americans cancelled their visit to the Greenlandic society. Instead, they will visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that.”

Donald Trump Jr’s made a private visit to the mineral-rich island in January. Since then, Trump has repeatedly urged Greenland’s residents to join the US, and threatened to take control of the territory.

“We need Greenland for international safety and security. We need it. We have to have it,” Trump told podcaster Vince Coglianese on Wednesday (US time).

“I hate to put it that way, but we’re going to have to have it.”

Polls suggest a vast majority of Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the US. Anti-US protesters, some wearing “Make America Go Away” caps and holding “Yankees go home” banners, have recently staged some of the largest demonstrations the island has seen.

Similar protests had been planned in connection with the Vances’ visit.

“I think they have misread the mood in Greenland,” Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, told Reuters.

“If they wanted to have diplomatic ties, I think this is the completely wrong way to do it,” she said, calling the visit “chaotic” and “disrespectful”.

Ole Waever, professor at the University of Copenhagen, said there were widespread concerns about “a soft power operation and creeping American infiltration” that many Greenlanders had found threatening.

“The credit for the positive turn must be given to Greenland … Caps off to them for that,” he said, referring to the planned protests.

Marc Jacobsen, associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, also said the changes were a relief.

“I think Copenhagen is relieved that they are not visiting the sled dog race or other places in Greenland,” he said.

The organisers of the dog-sled race said on Wednesday that they had received grants from the US consulate in Nuuk.

Greenland’s acting head of government, Mute Egede, had labelled the visit a “provocation” as it coincides with government coalition talks following a recent parliamentary election as well as municipal elections due next week.

White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said on Tuesday the delegation aimed to “learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people”.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has disputed the notion of a private visit with official representatives and has repeatedly said that Greenland should determine its own future.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede has also stressed that the island is not for sale and that it is up to its people to decide their future.

Greenland is strategically important for the US military and its ballistic missile early-warning system, since the shortest route from Europe to North America runs via the island.

A 1951 agreement between the US and Denmark established a US right to move around freely and construct military bases on the island, as long as Denmark and Greenland are notified.

-with AAP