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In the eyes of many of his Greenlandic companions, Jorgen Boassen is a traitor.
A few weeks ago in a diving bar in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, someone hit him on the face, sending him to the hospital. But whatever the consequences of their convictions, insists that he is not scared.
“The United States supports me,” he said.
Mr. Boassen, 51, former mason, is a fervent supporter or president Trump. He campaigned for him in the United States and helped coordinate Donald Trump Jr.’s visit to Greenland this year. In his coffee table at home, three pristine hats of Maga occupy a place of honor.
While his defense of the US president, who has promised to take care of Greenland “in one way or another”, has made Mr. Boassen unpopular at home, he has also made him an unlikely political player in the Arctic, a region of growing importance in a heater world anxiously for his unplug resources.
While resting on a sofa in his apartment on the edge of Nuuk, with a pink t -shirt stamped with Mr. Trump’s face, his phone buzzed with a flow of text messages from journalists and filmmakers who wanted to speak and investors who expected to be their ticket to wealth in Greenland.
In the debate on the future of the largest island in the world, a semi -automated territory abroad in Denmark, Mr. Boassen has caused his mission to approach Greenland and the United States.
Even so, Mr. Boassen said that “it is not always added” with the US president.
While Trump wants to claim the island for the United States, Boassen is introducing a narrow security alliance between an independent Greenland and Washington. That has made him one of the most visible Greenlands agitated to break with Denmark.
“Denmark has failed again and again,” he said. “They are not up to the challenge of defending Greenland.”
High level contacts have been cultivated in the Groenland government and has spent the last months working full for an organization that promotes the closer Usgeenland ties.
“Greenland’s future looks brighter with the United States,” said Boassen.
His transformation from mason to political player began publishing prolificly on social networks in support of Mr. Trump: Share memes, defend him in comments threads and explain his policy to a Greenland audience. Last year, those publications caught the attention of Tom Dans, a former Trump advisor for Arctic’s affairs.
“I was curious,” Dance said in an interview. “There are many people in that part of the world defending Trump.”
Dans, who used to work at the Heritage Conservative Foundation, sponsored Mr. Boassen to attend a Trump campaign event in Pittsburgh the past fall. Duration The final section, Mr. Boassen used to Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania.
Greenland says that he loves the direct communication style of Mr. Trump and that “he is a good person, once you study it.”
Born in qaqortoq, a small coastal city in southern Greenland, Mr. Boassen was raised by a single mother and a maternal grandmother with little money, in a modest home with little heat, a remarkably different education from that of her political idol.
A quiet child was fascinated with politics through VHS tapes, books and television: “The only way to watch the outside world,” he said.
After floating through a series of works, it was installed in the mason, building houses in Denmark.
But after being discovered on social networks, he now serves as director of Greenland for American Daybreak, a non -profit organization founded by Mr. Dans that promotes the closest ties of Unsgreenland.
He and Mr. Dans say he hears with Mr. Trump Jr. at the campaign election night party, where he suggested a future visit to Greenland.
He thought Mr. Boassen said he does not have direct access to Mr. Trump Jr., he said he communicates with Trump’s team through Dance.
In March, American Daybreak helped promote a visit by Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, to the National Dog Sleed Race career in Greenland. But after the reports of the planned protests by Greenland activists, the visit was changed to a letter from the trucks in a military military position in the United States on the island.
Despite its ambitions, the American Daybreak website still says: “soon”, and its presence in social networks is limited to the photographs of Mr. Dance in Greenland and Mr. Boassen posing with figures such as Nigel Farage, Conor McGregor and Senator Ted Cruz.
Although many of the 56,000 people in Greenland want independence, a recent opinion survey showed that 85 percent of them did not want to be part of the United States.
And some despise Mr. Boassen’s efforts. “The populist wave is simply riding,” said Frederik Kreutzmann, a social worker in Sisimiut, the second largest city in Greenland. “I don’t think much about him.”
While Mr. Boassen knows that some think that it is being used, he believes that he is part of something bigger, and hugs Greenland to take advantage of the moment, while he still has the attention of Mr. Trump.
“Now I’m part of world history,” said Boassen. “Maybe I’m just a pawn in a bigger game,” he added. “Politics is dirty, but if we don’t move fast, we will lose our possibilities.”
