The White House has insisted that acquiring Greenland is necessary for America\u2019s national security\u2014but it seems that some Trump officials believe it would primarily benefit American seafood buffets.<\/p>\n
A Trump official and Texas venture capitalist, Thomas Dans, was identified by the Danish government as one of three Americans running private \u201cinfluence operations\u201d in Greenland, according to The New Yorker<\/a>. (Dans is the twin brother of Project 2025 author Paul Dans.)<\/p>\n Dans was appointed<\/a> by Trump in December to serve as the chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, a federal agency founded<\/a> in 1984 to establish national policy as it relates to scientific advancement in the Arctic. Dans had previously<\/a> held the position during Trump\u2019s first term, as well.<\/p>\n In 2024, Dans founded American Daybreak, a nonprofit promoting U.S. business abroad. He continues to run the nonprofit, according to his LinkedIn<\/a> profile, and has leveraged both positions to venture to Greenland numerous times.<\/p>\n But the take that Dans offered The New Yorker regarding the proposed foreign takeover was less than inspiring. In a predominantly off-the-record interview, Dans offered the potential commercial benefits to seafood franchises like Red Lobster as the primary reason to take over Greenland.<\/p>\n \u201cMy view is that the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce, and cut out the middleman, and keep it from China\u2014and you could bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster,\u201d Dans said.<\/p>\n Dans has been a significant fixture in MAGA world\u2019s Greenland agenda since before Trump returned to power. He was the organizer of a \u201ctourism trip<\/a>\u201d that sent Donald Trump Jr., far-right political pundit Charlie Kirk, and Trump administration staffer Sergio Gor to the island in January 2025, according to an analysis by Responsible Statecraft<\/a>. That trek ended in several humiliating revelations, including reports from local media that Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food.<\/p>\n Two months later, in March, when Greenlandic outrage stumped his efforts to send Usha Vance to a dogsled race in Sisimiut, Dans was irate.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerican Daybreak, and I personally, were very disappointed by the negative and hostile reaction\u2014fanned by often false press reports\u2014to the United States supporting Greenland and hoping to learn about its culture, tradition, and people,\u201d Dans wrote in an extended missive on X<\/a> at the time. \u201cThese press stories and Greenlandic officials\u2019 overreaction are harmful to the strong relationship, based on mutual respect, shared interest, and courtesy, that the United States has long enjoyed with Greenland and hopes to expand upon.\u201d<\/p>\n