17 January 2025 , 10:40
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People in Maga hats at meal last week did not know Donald Trump’s son and were invited off the street, hotel boss says.
A group of Greenlanders who attended a lunch hosted by Donald Trump Jr wearing Make America Great Again caps were not dedicated supporters of the US president-elect but homeless people enticed by the prospect of free food, it has been claimed.
Trump Jr visited the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, last week, shortly after his father declared it was an “absolute necessity” for the US to take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
During his visit, Trump Jr went to the Hotel Hans Egede for lunch with a group of people wearing Maga hats and put his father on speakerphone. The president-elect told them: “We’re going to treat you well.”
But Jørgen Bay-Kastrup, the hotel’s chief executive, said many of his guests were not Trump supporters but people his team had met on the street who found out only later who Trump Jr was.
Describing many of the group as homeless people, he said Trump Jr “had just met them in the street and invited them for lunch, or his staff did. But I don’t think they knew who they were inviting”.
Jørgen Bay-Kastrup, the chief executive of the Hotel Hans Egede. Photograph: Juliette Pavy/The Guardian
“That of course was a little bit strange to us because we saw guests that we have never seen in our hotel before – and will probably never see again because it’s out of their economical means.”
The group of about 15 people ate a traditional Greenlandic lunch including fish and caribou. They were not, Bay-Kastrup added, Trump supporters. “They were just, ‘hey, somebody invited us for lunch, let’s go and join him’. I think they found out later who it was.”
A spokesperson for Trump Jr denied the claims, describing them as “beyond the pale ridiculous”.
People outside the Hotel Hans Egede last week when Trump Jr visited Nuuk. Photograph: Daniel L Johnsen/EPA
Trump Jr’s visit came as his father refused to rule out using military or economic action to acquire the world’s largest island.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have published a draft bill called the Make Greenland Great Again Act, which would allow the Trump administration, which takes office on Monday, to hold talks to attempt to purchase the territory.
Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said that the island, whose foreign and security policy are controlled by Denmark, a Nato member, is not for sale. The Greenlandic prime minister has, however, said that his government is interested in deepening collaboration with the US and has its “doors open in terms of mining”.
Asked about Trump’s interest in Greenland, Bay-Kastrup, who is Danish, said: “We are not a trade, we are not something for sale. We would like to cooperate, but we are not for sale.”
Since Trump Jr’s visit, people dressed in Maga caps and American flags have reportedly been distributing $100 bills and filming it outside the supermarket opposite.
One man, Jacob Nordstrøm, was quoted in the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq as saying his son, 11, had come home with a $100 bill. He told the paper, which described those handing out the money as Canadian-American influencers: “It’s really borderline shocking to find out that my 11-year-old son has received money from an adult he doesn’t know.”
Bay-Kastrup, who has witnessed the scenes from his office, said he thought most people probably found the stunt amusing, but that he had seen one person take a Maga cap and stamp on it.
In response to the Guardian’s request for comment about Trump Jr’s lunch guests, Arthur Schwartz, a political operative and friend of the president-elect’s son, said: “Do you think Donald Trump Jr was wandering around Greenland inviting homeless people … to lunch, or do you realise that the suggestion sounds so beyond the pale ridiculous that you should feel stupid even asking the question?
“There were cameras following him around from the second he got there to the second he left. Did they miss him recruiting homeless people … to his homeless person … lunch?”