President Donald Trump has spent years eyeing Greenland the way he eyes real estate that isn’t for sale. His long-running fixation on claiming the European territory has now slipped into its messiest phase yet.
After floating near-deal talk on the international stage at Davos, the fixation took a chaotic turn when the White House posted a new image that instantly turned the administration into an online punchline.
On Friday, Jan. 23, the administration posted a meme of Trump walking across a snowy landscape meant to represent Greenland, accompanied by a penguin holding an American flag, with Greenland’s flag planted in the background.
The caption bluntly stated: “Embrace the penguin.”
The post attempted to tap into the long-running “Nihilist Penguin” meme, which originated from a 2007 Werner Herzog documentary featuring a lone emperor penguin wandering away from its colony, according to The Hill.
The campaign was quickly overshadowed by a basic geographic problem that users could not get past: penguins do not live in Greenland.
Social media users treated the image less like a clever wink and more like evidence that the White House had confused Antarctica with the Arctic. The jokes stacked up as the post spread, with critics framing it as another example of an administration too comfortable turning foreign policy into spectacle and making the nation seem not bright.
One person tweeted, “There are no penguins in Greenland you morons.”
Greenland deserves penguins, only 1 man can give them that. Why you gotta be hatin? pic.twitter.com/OfefSuTNGn
— Nathan Shearer (@lifeonautosite) January 24, 2026
X account Patriot Takes hopped onboard, before tweeting, “There are no penguins in Greenland. All Penguins live in the southern hemisphere except one species from the Galapagos Islands. Perhaps you shouldn’t have dismantled the Department of Education so quickly.”
Another suggested, “You should put red hats on the penguins.”
“No penguins at the North Pole BEFORE Trump. The northern ice ceiling has been broken, you bird bigot!” one person joked wrote.
Shortly after the White House posted their image, the Department of Defense’s rapid response account followed with its own version, declaring, “Be a warrior, embrace the penguin.”
Even Chinese news outlets poked fun at Trump by sharing a picture of Uncle Sam in a red, white, and blue suit, with a wooden bat in his right hand. In his left hand appeared to be a leash attached to the neck of a penguin that was being dragged across the snow.
“Even if there are penguins in #Greenland, it would be like this… @WhiteHouse,” wrote the China Xinhua News station on X.
Two more replies read, “OMG” and ‘LMAO.”
Even if there are penguins in #Greenland, it would be like this… @WhiteHouse #USA #Hegemony pic.twitter.com/X9lwM3yE1F
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 24, 2026
It seems no one across the administration’s social media team caught the error, despite this being a fact kids learn in elementary school,
Aside from the geographical fact, the timing of the post mattered.
Trump revived talk of Greenland at the World Economic Forum, dropping earlier forceful rhetoric while still touting a vague “framework for a future deal” tied to security and minerals. Danish and NATO officials quickly shut it down, stressing that Greenland’s sovereignty isn’t negotiable, undercutting the bravado surrounding Trump’s comments.
Interestingly enough, the president, for all his desire to make Greenland a part of the United States, kept confusing it with Iceland.
The penguin episode also fits into a broader pattern of the White House sharing pushing heavily AI-generated images.
Just weeks earlier, the administration promoted the bipartisan “Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act” with another AI-created image of Trump, this time depicting the 79-year-old president with an exaggerated muscular build, hoisting crates of milk under the slogan “Make Whole Milk Great Again.”
That image was widely mocked as well, with users pointing out the unrealistic physique and joking that the giveaway was Trump being shown doing physical labor with his jacket buttoned. Others noted that the AI dramatically slimmed him down from his actual size— leaving many on social media cracking up at the attempt to flatter the POTUS.
By the end of the weekend, what was meant to be a flex had backfired. The post spread quickly, but not in the way the administration likely intended. As the world waits to see what happens with Greenland, critics are also watching the White House’s social media operation, hoping the administration can “Make America Smart Again” by knowing the subject matter before posting it for everyone to see.
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