'I'm the Che Guevara of Greenland': An evening with Trump's 'Greenlandic son'
NUUK, Greenland − First, Jorgen Boassen wanted to meet for a gin and tonic. Immediately. At his house. "Can you pick up tonic and limes on your way?" he said, urgency in his voice.
Then Boassen wanted to hotfoot it over to a cavernous sports hall for a Thai boxing match where a DJ was playing a remixed version of the British-Nigerian singer Sade's 1980s global hit "Smooth Operator."
Several hours and rounds later − not the boxing kind − Boassen showed up at Nuuk's largest hotel, where he shook a couple of hands, listened to a lounge singer run through some jazz standards, and shook off a few hostile stares.
Former bricklayer. Political influencer. Would-be mining consultant. Man on a mission to help tap Greenland's untapped resources and economic potential. Traitor, some say − especially the guy who slugged him in the face in a Nuuk dive bar in late April. Boassen, 51, says he is versions of all these things. Most of them are a consequence of his championing of President Donald Trump in a place where rare support for an American president who has vowed to take over Greenland "one way or the other" tends to end in eyes rolled, or in Boassen's case, blackened. Boassen is Greenland's de facto MAGA representative.
"This is about a fight for the Greenlandic people," Boassen said one evening in June as he sat on a sofa in his cozy home in Greenland's capital.
"It's not because I hate Denmark. It's about the Danish power in Greenland."
Boassen's mostly stopped wearing them now because of the Trump backlash in Greenland, but he still occasionally dons a MAGA cap and T-shirts with American flags with things like "American badass" emblazoned on them. He's been a fan of Trump since 2019, when the U.S. president first started talking about acquiring Greenland.
Trump says the United States needs to "get Greenland" for national security reasons. It's in a strategic location in the Arctic. Due to melting ice, new shipping Arctic routes and military activity are increasing. It is also rich in commodities like oil and gold and rare earth minerals essential for manufacturing smartphones and other advanced technologies.
Boassen is part of a very small but vocal minority of Greenlanders who appreciate Trump's interest, polls show.
But his support for Trump hasn't always been carefree.
Boassen's been teased and mocked and even faced death threats on social media. He professes to have an almost spiritual connection to Trump. He doesn't agree with every word he says. Boassen wants Greenland to be an independent country, but wants it to to have a close security and economic alliance with the United States.
A Greenlandic son who's into Trump
Born in Qaqortoq, a town in southern Greenland, Boassen was raised by a single mother. Money was tight. Their home was modest. Heat was in short supply. That world is a far cry from the one he now seeks to inhabit as an Arctic political player with the ear of some in Trump's inner circle.
"Trump is the one who can save us, though it's hard to support him when we don't know his plan," he said.
'One way or the other': Five ways Trump's Greenland saga could play out
Boassen isn't a social media influencer. But he owes some of his nascent influence to social media. He was discovered on Facebook by Thomas Dans, an American advisor to the under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs during Trump's first term. Dans was also a member of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. Now he promotes closer U.S.-Greenland ties.
"I learned of Jorgen from friends in the Greenlandic community," said Dans. "He was being called 'Trump's Greenlandic Son.' I said, 'I need to meet this guy.'"
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Dans eventually tapped Boassen to serve as Greenland director for American Daybreak, a nonprofit organization he founded that works to educate and advance Trump's America First foreign policy, particularly in the Arctic.
It was American Daybreak that, in March, sought to arrange a visit to Greenland by Usha Vance, wife of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, for Greenland's national sled dog race. But after reports of planned protests by Greenlandic activists, the visit was revised to a brief stop by the Vances at a remote U.S. military outpost on the island.
A Greenlandic pugilist
Boassen has an imposing build. He's a boxing enthusiast and used to box and train boxers. He wears his hair swept sharply to one side. Like more than 90% of 57,000 Greenlanders, he identifies as Inuit, the indigenous people who inhabit the Arctic region. But Boassen's father is from Denmark, which he said accounts for his light skin tone and blue eyes.
Greenland was colonized by Denmark beginning in the 18th century. That era ended in 1953, when Greenland became a self-governing territory.
Boassen is also a fast talker who courts publicity.
'Buy us!': Greenlanders shocked, intrigued, bewildered by Trump zeal for Arctic territory
He has not shied away from the relative fame that his association with the Trump cause has brought him Greenland. Most days he fields requests from journalists from around the world who want to see or talk to the guy they see as Trump's unofficial local "Greenland envoy." More than a few journalists have been to his house.
"He's a natural leader with a deep love for Greenland and its people, coupled with a bold and gregarious personality and expert communication skills," Dans said of Boassen. "He's also a true fighter, both as a former boxer as well as a modern Inuit man, formed in his people's great Arctic traditions."
'We are different from Denmark'
Over the course of an evening spent with a USA TODAY reporter this summer, Boassen's phone constantly pinged. He called Dans and put him on speakerphone. He video-called a friend in Greenland's high North, not far from the Pituffik Space Base the Vances visited, because he wanted to prove there were Greenlandic fellow-travelers when it came to support for Trump. Boassen is considering whether he wants to grant a Danish filmmaker access to his life story for a documentary.
'Crazy beautiful place with dark side': Greenland, but not as you know it
Boassen's wife did not want to participate in the interview but she occasionally sighed deeply as her husband spoke and gave him a knowing side-eye. She sometimes tried to shush him from the other end of the sofa if his comments wandered too closely into their personal lives.
"We are different from Denmark even if the Danes have been here for 300 years," said Boassen, as he held forth on all the ways he believes that Greenland's Inuit population has suffered under Danish rule: sterilization scandals from colonial times, poor job prospects, elevated rates of suicide and alcoholism.
Boassen insisted on sharing a selection of his "greatest hits," preserved in YouTube video clips saved on his TV. There he was at the arrivals door at the airport in Nuuk when Donald Trump Jr. visited Greenland in January, a trip he helped coordinate. It came about after Boassen spent a few weeks canvassing for the former president on the streets of Pittsburgh during the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. Boassen went to an election night party in Palm Beach, Florida, near Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. He attended Trump's inauguration, along with Kuno Fenker, an opposition lawmaker who is a member of Greenland's nationalist Naleraq party. It too wants closer relations with the United States, though it seeks independence for Greenland.
On his cellphone, Boassen had photos of himself with the American musician Kid Rock, MMA fighter Conor McGregor, Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, political commentator Ben Shapiro and other MAGA-affiliated personalities.
Greenland not for sale: It is welcoming Americans with direct flights
"He has a very good feeling for how ordinary people in Greenland are feeling about the issues that impact their lives day-to-day," said Fenker, the lawmaker, who is a close friend of Boassen's.
In his home, while sipping a gin and tonic, then a beer, then coffee, Boassen said of himself, "I'm the Che Guevara of Greenland." It was a reference to the Argentine doctor and revolutionary who fought for social change in Latin America before he was killed in a Bolivian jungle with the help of the CIA.
That characterization, of course, is a stretch and was made partly in jest, which Boassen admitted, but it still speaks to how serious he takes his dream of one day seeing an independent Greenland.
MAGA in Romania
A few weeks earlier, Boassen had been in Romania with Dans. Boassen said they were invited to observe Romania's election by George Simion, a far-right candidate in that country's presidential election. Simion, Boassen said, was a big believer in Trump's MAGA ideology. (Simion lost the vote, and later alleged it was due to foreign interference.)
When Boassen's wife spied an opportunity, she grabbed the TV remote and switched channels to a rerun of a music festival where some of her favorite bands, such as Green Day, the American punk rockers, and Radiohead, a British alternative rock band, were playing. She came along to the boxing match, too. Reluctantly.
On the walk to the sports hall from their house, Boassen said he was trying to form more partnerships with Greenlandic officials to be useful to Trump's White House, but it's been difficult lately to get the attention of the U.S. administration because it is preoccupied with other crises in Ukraine, Iran and the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. He said he's convinced his phone is being tapped by the Danish authorities. He admitted that he is not making a living from his work with American Daybreak. He that said people often ask him if he's concerned that maybe Trump is just "using him" in a way that isn't in Greenland's best interests, in ways he doesn't appreciate.
"I don't know," was Boassen's answer to that question.
"But I'd rather have Trump as the U.S. president right now than Kamala Harris," he said. "And anyway, bricklaying wasn't making me much money. It's too honest. No one will hire me because I support Trump."
Kim Hjelmgaard is an international correspondent for USA TODAY. Follow him on Bluesky, Instagram and LinkedIn.
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