The makers of mobile apps designed to help shoppers identify and boycott American goods say they have seen a surge of interest in Denmark and beyond after US President Donald Trump’s recent threats regarding Greenland.
Over the past few months Mr Trump repeatedly announced his ambitions to acquire Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, for the United States, at times threatening force and tariffs.
The creator of the Made O’Meter app, Ian Rosenfeldt, said he saw about 30,000 downloads of the free app in just three days at the height of the trans-Atlantic diplomatic crisis in late January out of more than 100,000 since it was launched in March.
The Made O’Meter app uses artificial intelligence to identify and analyse several products at a time. (AP: James Brooks)
Apps offer practical help
In mid-January, thousands of people took to the streets of Denmark chanting “Greenland is not for sale” and carrying banners saying “Hands off Greenland”.
Mr Rosenfeldt, who lives in Copenhagen and works in digital marketing, decided to create the app a year ago after joining a Facebook group of like-minded Danes hoping to boycott US goods.
“Many people were frustrated and thinking, ‘How do we actually do this in practical terms?'” he said.
Greenland is not for sale: thousands take to the streets of Denmark
“If you use a barcode scanner, it’s difficult to see if a product is actually American or not, if it’s Danish or not.
“And if you don’t know that, you can’t really make a conscious choice.”
The latest version of the Made O’Meter app uses artificial intelligence to identify and analyse several products at a time, then recommend similar European-made alternatives.
Users can set preferences, such as “No USA-owned brands” or “Only EU-based brands.”
The app claims over 95 per cent accuracy.
“By using artificial intelligence, you can take an image of a product … and it can make a deep dive to go out and find the correct information about the product in many levels,” Mr Rosenfeldt said during a demonstration at a Copenhagen grocery store.
“This way, you have information that you can use to take decisions on what you think is right.”
Downloads of the Made O’Meter surged in January after Donald Trump’s repeated threats about acquiring Greenland. (AP: James Brooks)
Surge in downloads
After an initial surge of downloads when the app was launched, usage tailed off until January, when Mr Trump stepped up his rhetoric about the need for the US to acquire Greenland, a strategically important and mineral-rich Arctic island that is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.
Usage peaked on January 23, when there were almost 40,000 scans in one day, compared with 500 or so daily last northern hemisphere summer.
Trump touts ‘total access’ Greenland deal
It has dropped back since but there were still about 5,000 a day last week, according to Mr Rosenfeldt, who said Made O’Meter is used by more than 20,000 people in Denmark but also by people in Germany, Spain, Italy and Venezuela.
Denmark has a total population of just over 6 million people, according to Statistics Denmark.
“It’s become much more personal,” Mr Rosenfeld said, adding that the US had lost “an ally and a friend”.
Mr Trump announced in January he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after he said a “framework” for a deal over access to mineral-rich Greenland was reached with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte’s help.
Few details of that agreement have emerged.
The US began technical talks in late January to put together an Arctic security deal with Denmark and Greenland, which say sovereignty is not negotiable.
Boycotts largely symbolic
Mr Rosenfeldt knows such boycotts will not damage the US economy, but hopes to send a message to supermarkets and encourage greater reliance on European producers.
“Maybe we can send a signal and people will listen and we can make a change,” he said.
The protest may be largely symbolic
Another Danish app, called NonUSA, topped 100,000 downloads at the beginning of February.
One of its creators, 21-year-old Jonas Pipper, said there were more than 25,000 downloads on January 21, when 526 product scans were performed in a minute at one point.
Of the users, some 46,000 are in Denmark and around 10,000 in Germany.
“We noticed some users saying they felt like a little bit of the pressure was lifted off them,” Mr Pipper said.
“They feel like they kind of gained the power back in this situation.”
It’s questionable whether such apps will have much practical effect.
Christina Gravert, an associate professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen, said there were actually few US products on Danish grocery store shelves, “around 1 to 3 per cent”.
Nuts, wines and confectionary are examples.
But there is widespread use of American technology in Denmark, from Apple iPhones to Microsoft Office tools.
“If you really want to have an impact, that’s where you should start,” Professor Gravert said.
Even Made O’Meter and NonUSA are downloaded from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
Change requires ‘organised effort’
Professor Gravert, who specialises in behavioural economics, said such boycott campaigns were usually short-lived and real change often required an organised effort rather than individual consumers.
“It can be interesting for big supermarket brands to say, ‘OK, we’re not going to carry these products anymore because consumers don’t want to buy them,'” she said.
“If you think about large companies, this might have some type of impact on the import [they] do.”
On a recent morning, shoppers leaving one Copenhagen grocery store were divided.
“We do boycott, but we don’t know all the American goods. So, it’s mostly the well-known trademarks,” Morten Nielsen, a 68-year-old retired navy officer, said.
“It’s a personal feeling … we feel we do something, I know we are not doing very much.”
But 63-year-old retiree Charlotte Fuglsang said she loved America.
“I love travelling in America,” she said.
“I don’t think we should protest that way.”
AP