President Donald Trump’s envoy to Greenland says he got a warm welcome on his first visit this week. But the mood on the Arctic island was decidedly frostier, with one of its most prominent lawmakers calling the visit “appalling” and “offensive.”

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Pipaluk Lynge, who chairs Greenland’s foreign and security policy committee, slammed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s trip as “a clear attempt to divide us” during the sensitive negotiations on the future of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

She singled out his attempts to offer chocolate chip cookies to a group of Greenlandic children, seen by some as a surreal effort to win approval despite grown-up Greenlanders saying no to American advances.

“I think it’s remarkable that they feel welcome even though they weren’t invited,” Lynge said in an interview with NBC News.

Trump has caused outrage in Greenland and Europe by suggesting he could use force to seize the island, which has vast mineral resources and is strategically positioned in a region increasingly contested between the United States, Russia and China. Most officials and experts agree that were the U.S. to invade a fellow NATO member, it would spell the end of the troubled military alliance.

While Trump has rowed back these explicit militaristic threats, his designs on Greenland have not gone away. Arriving this week, Landry said his mission was to “make friends” but also that it was time for Washington “to put its footprint back” on the Arctic territory.

There was little evidence of any friendliness on the street, with the governor being heckled by people shouting “Don’t come here” and others giving him the finger.

Polls consistently show Greenlanders overwhelmingly reject American annexation, with pollster Sune Steffen Hansen finding in February that 76% were against and 8% for the idea.

“We don’t want to be Americans,” said Qarsoq Høegh-Dam, a lawmaker who represents Greenland in the Danish parliament and wants independence from Copenhagen. He described the “extraordinary” situation in which “an ally is coming to us with what is basically an ultimatum.”

Despite the anger and fear, the Greenlandic government has acknowledged a willingness to listen to U.S. security concerns. Negotiators from Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. are currently holding a high-level, closed-door “working group” trying to find a way forward. One reported suggestion on the table is increasing American military presence in Greenland, which since 1951 has hosted a U.S. base.

Landry’s office did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Speaking to journalists during his visit, he said that Trump had told him to “go over there and make as many friends as we can get.” He said he was there “simply to build relationships, to look, to listen and to learn,” and alleged that Greenland had been “ignored” by the U.S. until Trump took office.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Sweden on Friday for a summit of NATO countries’ foreign ministers, told reporters Friday that Greenland had not been directly discussed, but said “there’s a growing commitment” to make Arctic security a regular focus of NATO engagements, “for obvious reasons.”

The White House said Landry was there “to further strengthen U.S.-Greenlandic ties and engage with local leaders,” assistant press secretary Olivia Wales said in an email. The U.S. is “optimistic that we are on a good trajectory to address U.S. national security interests in Greenland,” she said, saying Landry was doing “a great job” as governor and special envoy.

That could not be further from the opinion of many Greenlanders.

“We’ve seen how they treated the Native Americans, how they treated the Black people and the Mexicans over the last couple of years,” said Lynge, the lawmaker in Greenland’s parliament, which has power over most domestic policies while Denmark controls defense and security. “Most of us in Greenland tend to be Indigenous peoples, and we tend to stand with other Indigenous peoples.”

She called it “peculiar” that Landry had visited while this working group was still sitting. “It’s clear for me to see that he’s trying to affect us.”

Unlike America’s ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, Landry was not confirmed by the Senate but rather appointed by Trump himself.

“This is an f—ed up situation,” Høegh-Dam said. “This is not an accredited diplomatic envoy, but nonetheless this is someone who has close ties to the highest office in the United States.”

Landry was not invited to Greenland by its government. He held a “courtesy meeting” with Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who said it was held with “mutual respect and in a positive atmosphere.” But Nielsen remained resolute that his country was “not for sale,” he said afterward. The governor also attended a business conference, as well as the unveiling of a new U.S. Consulate in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, an event Thursday that attracted hundreds of demonstrators chanting “No means no.”

One thing that caused particular uproar during Landry’s visit was the accompaniment of a U.S. doctor to “assess the medical needs” of the island. This is a deeply sensitive issue. Greenlanders have been victims of decades of medical abuses under Danish rule, including women and girls as young as 12 being fitted with IUDs in the 1960s and ‘70s in an apparent attempt to reduce the population.

Greenland Health Minister Anna Wangenheim said it was “deeply problematic when people with a political mission to make Greenland part of the United States send a so-called volunteer doctor to Nuuk to ‘assess our needs.’”

Her statement decried “political envoys with hidden strategic interests” and pointed out that “Greenlanders are not experimental subjects in a geopolitical project.”

Something else criticized by Greenlandic officials was Landry’s interaction with a group of children while on a walkabout in Nuuk. He offered them unlimited chocolate chip cookies if they ever visited his governor’s mansion in Louisiana.

Nielsen said his compatriots would not be so easily wooed.

“We have our red lines,” Nielsen told Denmark’s public broadcaster DK. “And no matter how many chocolate cookies we get, we are not going to change them.”

For others, this was more sinister: an emissary from a hostile state trying to win over children after having been firmly rejected by their parents and politicians.

“I think it’s appalling and I think it’s offensive” that he “went on the streets and tried to affect children” like that, Lynge said.

There is another wrinkle in the question over who should control Greenland: While most Greenlanders balk at the idea of being taken over by America, some also want to be freed from Danish rule. Polls vary, with a survey last year finding that 56% favored independence, with another in February finding 62% wanted the island to stay part of Denmark.

“There is no such thing as a ‘better colonizer,” said Sara Olsvig, a former lawmaker in both the Greenlandic and Danish parliaments. She is now chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents 180,000 Inuit across Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia.

“It’s important to remember that as a people and as a nation, we have already been through colonization once,” she said. “And we don’t want to go through it again.”