{"id":280471,"date":"2026-02-08T11:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/280471\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T11:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:23:07","slug":"apps-to-boycott-us-goods-gained-traction-in-crisis-over-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/280471\/","title":{"rendered":"Apps to boycott US goods gained traction in crisis over Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The makers of mobile apps designed to help shoppers identify and boycott American goods<\/a> say they saw a surge of interest in Denmark and beyond after the recent flare-up in tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The creator of the \u201cMade O\u2019Meter\u201d app, Ian Rosenfeldt, said he saw around 30,000 downloads of the free app in just three days at the height of the trans-Atlantic diplomatic crisis<\/a> in late January out of more than 100,000 since it was launched in March.<\/p>\n

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 U.S. goods. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany people were frustrated and thinking, \u2018How do we actually do this in practical terms,\u2019\u201d the 53-year-old recalled. \u201cIf you use a bar code scanner, it\u2019s difficult to see if a product is actually American or not, if it\u2019s Danish or not. And if you don\u2019t know that, you can\u2019t really make a conscious choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest version of \u201cMade O\u2019Meter\u201d uses artificial intelligence to identify and analyze several products at a time, then recommend similar European-made alternatives. Users can set preferences, like \u201cNo USA-owned brands\u201d or \u201cOnly EU-based brands.\u201d The app claims over 95% accuracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy using artificial intelligence, you can take an image of a product \u2026 and it can make a deep dive to go out and find the correct information about the product in many levels,\u201d Rosenfeldt told The Associated Press during a demonstration at a Copenhagen grocery store. \u201cThis way, you have information that you can use to take decisions on what you think is right.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an initial surge of downloads when the app was launched, usage tailed off. Until last month, when Trump stepped up his rhetoric about the need for the U.S. to acquire Greenland<\/a>, a strategically important and mineral-rich Arctic island<\/a> that is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. <\/p>\n

Usage peaked Jan. 23, when there were almost 40,000 scans in one day, compared with 500 or so daily last summer. It has dropped back since but there were still around 5,000 a day this week, said Rosenfeldt, who noted \u201cMade O\u2019Meter\u201d is used by over 20,000 people in Denmark but also by people in Germany, Spain, Italy, even Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become much more personal,\u201d said Rosenfeldt, who spoke of \u201closing an ally and a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cframework\u201d for a deal over access to mineral-rich Greenland was reached with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte\u2019s help. Few details of that agreement have emerged. <\/p>\n

The U.S. began technical talks<\/a> in late January to put together an Arctic security deal with Denmark and Greenland, which say sovereignty is not negotiable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rosenfeldt knows such boycotts won\u2019t damage the U.S. economy, but hopes to send a message to supermarkets and encourage greater reliance on European producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we can send a signal and people will listen and we can make a change,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Another Danish app, \u201cNonUSA,\u201d topped 100,000 downloads at the beginning of February. One of its creators, 21-year-old Jonas Pipper, said there were over 25,000 downloads Jan. 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe noticed some users saying they felt like a little bit of the pressure was lifted off them,\u201d Pipper said. \u201cThey feel like they kind of gained the power back in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s questionable whether such apps will have much practical effect.<\/p>\n

Christina Gravert, an associate professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen, said there are actually few U.S. products on Danish grocery store shelves, \u201caround 1 to 3%\u201d. Nuts, wines and candy, for example. But there is widespread use of American technology in Denmark, from Apple iPhones to Microsoft Office tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you really want to have an impact, that\u2019s where you should start,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Even \u201cMade O\u2019Meter\u201d and \u201cNonUSA\u201d are downloaded from Apple\u2019s App Store and Google\u2019s Play Store.<\/p>\n

Gravert, who specializes in behavioral economics, said such boycott campaigns are usually short-lived and real change often requires an organized effort rather than individual consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be interesting for big supermarket brands to say, OK, we\u2019re not going to carry these products anymore because consumers don\u2019t want to buy them,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you think about large companies, this might have some type of impact on the import (they) do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a recent morning, shoppers leaving one Copenhagen grocery store were divided.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do boycott, but we don\u2019t know all the American goods. So, it\u2019s mostly the well-known trademarks,\u201d said Morten Nielsen, 68, a retired navy officer. \u201cIt\u2019s a personal feeling \u2026 we feel we do something, I know we are not doing very much.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI love America, I love traveling in America,\u201d said 63-year-old retiree Charlotte Fuglsang. \u201cI don\u2019t think we should protest that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The makers of mobile apps designed to help shoppers identify and boycott American goods say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[144139,127,114,122,85,46,5468,125,126],"class_list":{"0":"post-280471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-144139","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}