Donald Trump has discussed purchasing the entire country of Greenland.

An ally of the president told The Associated Press on Thursday that the president had discussed the idea which was laughed off by some advisers as a joke but taken more seriously by others

The president, who is on a working vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, is to make his first visit to Denmark early in September.

There has been no indication that a Greenland purchase will be on the agenda for his talks with Danish officials.

Neither the White House nor Denmark immediately commented on the report which first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

It would not be the first time an American leader tried to buy the world’s largest island, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

In 1946, the US proposed to pay Denmark 100 million US dollars to buy Greenland after flirting with the idea of swapping land in Alaska for strategic parts of the Arctic island.

The US does already have a presence in the country – the Thule Air Base in Greenland is the military’s northernmost installation.