Thomas Traasdahl/Reuters
- The Danish shop owner whose MAGA parody hat went viral says he's glad Trump backed down on Greenland.
- Trump's threats to take over the territory were met with international backlash in recent weeks.
- Search interest and copycat products surged as Greenland was thrust into the diplomatic spotlight.
President Donald Trump's ambition to take over Greenland may be on ice for now, but supporters of the Danish territory won't soon forget the affair.
In particular, Jesper Tønnesen, the Copenhagen shop owner whose MAGA parody hat went viral, told Business Insider he'll continue to raise support for Greenland's right to self-determination.
"You don't feel that you have any promises, because it can change again," he said of Trump's proposed deal with Denmark.
Tønnesen's business was thrust into the international spotlight over a red MAGA-style hat he designed late last year in protest of a US takeover of Greenland that read "Nu det Nuuk," a twist on the Danish way of saying "Now it's enough" that used the name of Greenland's capital city.
Tønnesen said he was inspired by a parody "Make America Go Away" hat he had seen earlier, but he felt it was important to make a statement in his native language. The alternate MAGA phrase was also included on a side panel with a Greenland flag.
"Trump maybe took one step too much," he said of the threats to seize the NATO ally's territory. "We can't communicate with him — we have to say, now it's enough, because we tried."
An initial run of 300 hats didn't get much traction at first, but search interest and copycat products surged last weekend after Trump ramped up his rhetoric over the issue and protesters in Copenhagen and Nuuk took to the streets.
Ahead of the protests, Tønnesen and his team made a printed version of the hats to distribute to the crowd, turning the image into an overnight sensation.
E-commerce tracking service JungleScout told Business Insider it has tracked a nearly 900% increase in search volume for the term "Greenland" over the past 30 days.
Tønnesen said he and his partners are keeping none of the profits from the hats, pledging to donate the money to Greenlandic charities.
"I have five minutes of fame where I can use this to help Greenland," he said. "That's what it's all about."
Trump said this week he has no intention of taking the territory by force and no longer intends to slap tariffs on European countries over the Greenland issue. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump also said an agreement would include "total access" for the US.
Tønnesen said he has several thousand more hats arriving in the next few days, including a design that says Greenland is "Already Great."
Still, he is aware that the window of public attention can be short.
"I had the possibility to speak out," he said. "You have to do it when the train is running."