Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana has been picked by President Trump to be the country’s special envoy to Greenland, a decision that has appeared to surprise both officials on the frozen island and residents in the deeply Southern state.
The exact scope of Mr. Landry’s new role remains unclear, though he will remain in the governor’s office. But his duties as special envoy will be related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to take over the semiautonomous Danish territory.
Still, Mr. Landry, a Republican and Trump loyalist with a thick Cajun accent, is not exactly an obvious choice for the role. He has virtually no experience in foreign affairs. And it is unclear how he will juggle being the governor and the special envoy to a territory that has become a priority for the Trump administration.
Here are some things to know about Mr. Landry.
He’s a conservative fighter.
Before winning the governor’s race in 2023, Mr. Landry served as Louisiana’s attorney general since 2016.
In that role, he built a reputation as a brash conservative and a confrontational litigator who repeatedly fought Democratic policies in court. Those legal battles against the Biden administration and former Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, included cases over pandemic vaccine mandates, environmental regulations and efforts to work with social media companies to limit the spread of misleading or false theories.
Mr. Landry also defended Louisiana’s abortion law, one of the strictest in the nation. After a court hearing on that law, Mr. Landry said that critics could leave the state.
In the 2023 governor’s race, he trounced a crowded field of candidates, surprising many people who had expected a runoff. While campaigning, Mr. Landry, who served as a sheriff’s deputy and one-term lawmaker in the U.S. House of Representatives, vowed to address crime in the state, though critics said at the time that countering crime fell under the jurisdiction of the attorney general.
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He’s fiercely loyal to the president.
Mr. Landry has been a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump and his policies.
He has asked the president to send National Guard troops to his state. And this month, he applauded the deployment of Border Patrol agents to the New Orleans area. That operation — the goal of which was to arrest 5,000 undocumented immigrants despite only a few hundred arrests so far — has drawn criticism for its aggressive tactics and for hurting the economy.
Despite the pushback on the operation, including among some conservatives, Mr. Landry has insisted that the agents were making the state safer.
He has also long encouraged the president’s idea of taking over Greenland. “President Donald J. Trump is absolutely right!” he posted on X in January. “We need to ensure that Greenland joins the United States. GREAT for them, GREAT for us! Let’s get it done!”
He’s a foreign policy novice.
As governor, Mr. Landry has done much to steer Louisiana further to the right. For instance, he signed legislation that required the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom of the state’s public schools and universities. (A federal appeals court panel found that law to be “plainly unconstitutional” in June. The case is pending review from the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.)
More recently, the governor took a particular interest in Louisiana State University’s football team. He expressed concern over the state having to pay, according to terms of a contract, millions of dollars to a coach, who was fired midseason this year. At a news conference last month, he said that the university’s athletic director would not be picking the next coach.
“Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it,” Mr. Landry said.
In June, Mr. Landry led a state delegation to the International Paris Air Show, the world’s largest aerospace and aviation event, “to strengthen economic ties, attract new investment and showcase the state’s growing role in global industries,” according to his office.
But when it comes to dealing with the Danish government, it’s hard to find anything on Mr. Landry’s résumé that relates to the matter.
Mr. Trump, though, has a history of tapping people close to him to manage priorities in Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East and a handful of other issues.
Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic politician serving in the Danish Parliament, wrote on Facebook on Monday that Mr. Landry was “welcome to visit.” But Greenland, she reiterated, was not for sale.
Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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