Anti-US shopping apps see 40,000 daily scans during Greenland crisis

Thousands of Danes grabbed their phones and started scanning grocery store shelves, hunting for American products to avoid after President Donald Trump ramped up his talk about taking Greenland.

Two apps built to spot U.S. goods shot up the download charts in late January according to data from market intelligence firm Appfigures.

Made O’Meter, created by 53-year-old Copenhagen resident Ian Rosenfeldt, pulled in about 30,000 new users in just three days when tensions hit their peak. That’s out of more than 100,000 total downloads since the app launched last March.

Another tool called NonUSA crossed the 100,000 download mark in early February. On January 21 alone, its 21-year-old creator Jonas Pipper watched 25,000 people grab the app, with users scanning 526 products in a single minute at one point.

Regular bar codes don’t tell you if a product is American or European. “Many people were frustrated and thinking, ‘How do we actually do this in practical terms,'” Rosenfeldt told the Associated Press. His app uses artificial intelligence to scan products and suggest European alternatives. Users can set their preferences, like blocking all U.S.-owned brands or only buying from EU companies. The app claims it’s more than 95% accurate.

Made O’Meter was doing about 500 scans a day last summer. On January 23, that number exploded to nearly 40,000. It’s dropped since but still sits around 5,000 daily. The app now has more than 20,000 regular users in Denmark, plus people in Germany, Spain, Italy, and even Venezuela.

Trump later backed off his tariff threats after talks with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. He said they’d reached a “framework” for a deal about access to Greenland’s minerals and Arctic security.

As Cryptopolitan covered at the time, the EU had called emergency meetings and European leaders warned the tariffs would “undermine transatlantic relations.” Few details about Trump’s framework deal have come out since. U.S. and Danish officials started technical talks in late January about Arctic security, but Denmark and Greenland keep saying their sovereignty isn’t up for discussion.

Boycott apps won’t put a dent in the U.S. economy

Louise Aggerstrøm Hansen, an economist at Danske Bank, told Euronews that only about 1% of Danish food consumption comes directly from the United States.

Rosenfeldt understands his app won’t damage the American economy. His hope is different to send a message to grocery stores and encourage more reliance on European producers. “Maybe we can send a signal and people will listen and we can make a change,” he said.

Pipper called his app “a weapon in the trade war for consumers.” His numbers show about 46,000 users in Denmark and 10,000 in Germany. Some users told him the app lifted pressure off them. “They feel like they kind of gained the power back in this situation.”

The spread to other Nordic countries matters too. Beyond Denmark, NonUSA users include thousands in Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. Threats to one Nordic country can feel like threats to all.

Whether larger companies will respond is the bigger question. Individual consumer choices might not move the needle much. But if Danish pension funds, institutional investors, or major retail chains start making decisions based on similar sentiments, the impact grows.

AkademikerPension, a Danish pension fund, already sold $100 million in U.S. Treasury bonds in January over the Greenland situation. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed it, saying “Denmark’s investments in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.” That kind of talk might actually encourage more institutions to make symbolic moves.

In the end, this isn’t really about apps or boycotts. It’s about what happens when people feel their government can’t protect them from bigger powers. They look for any tool available, even if they know it’s mostly symbolic. As Rosenfeldt put it, Danish citizens “love the American people, but we don’t like the way that the government is treating Europe and Denmark.”

Join a premium crypto trading community free for 30 days - normally $100/mo.