{"id":55,"date":"2026-09-15T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwts-elimination.myftp.biz\/?p=55"},"modified":"2026-09-15T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T10:00:00","slug":"how-a-maga-influencer-with-ties-to-russia-became-trumps-arctic-adviser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwts-elimination.myftp.biz\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"How a MAGA Influencer With Ties to Russia Became Trump\u2019s Arctic Adviser"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reporting Highlights<\/h3>\n
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Foreign Affairs:<\/strong> Thomas Dans has backed taking over Greenland and advocated reestablishing ties with Russia, where he\u2019s long done business \u2014 even sharing pro-Kremlin posts.<\/li>\n
Business Opportunities:<\/strong> As U.S. Arctic Research Commission chair, Dans has championed a Dutch shipbuilder with which he had a business relationship.<\/li>\n
Scientific Blowback:<\/strong> Tensions over Greenland flared after Dans, who has no formal scientific background, was appointed. Some Danish researchers said they won\u2019t join the U.S. in research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For more than 40 years, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has advised Congress and the president on what to study in the frigid and dynamic far north, from the environment to military security. It\u2019s typically done so without making waves, led by people well-versed in science and public policy.<\/p>\n
That was until December, when President Donald Trump appointed a Texas venture capitalist and MAGA influencer with no formal background in science as the commission\u2019s chair. Since then, Thomas Dans has traveled the globe generating headlines. Serving as the administration\u2019s main voice on the Arctic, he\u2019s advanced some of the president\u2019s wildest ambitions, like a takeover of Greenland, and rankled NATO allies in the process.<\/p>\n
Yet as Dans holds forth in the U.S. and abroad, it\u2019s not always clear where the administration\u2019s agenda ends and his own begins.<\/p>\n
He has repeatedly said, for example, that the U.S. needs more icebreakers, ships that Trump has long viewed as critical to dominating the Arctic. In doing so, Dans has championed one shipbuilder in particular \u2014 Damen Shipyards, a Dutch company with which he had a business relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the largest builder of icebreakers and ice-class vessels in the world,\u201d Dans said at an event in Anchorage, Alaska, in April. At the time, his consultancy was working to help Damen land an icebreaker contract with the federal government.<\/p>\n
As he\u2019s spoken to audiences of government officials, diplomats, academics and journalists, Dans \u2014 who wears his Arctic commission lapel pin and exudes a professorial air \u2014 has also waded into foreign policy.<\/p>\n
In the media and at public events, he\u2019s backed Trump\u2019s push to take over Greenland. And he\u2019s advocated enthusiastically for closer U.S. relations with Russia \u2014 even as a bipartisan group of lawmakers calls for tougher sanctions on the country and more aid to Ukraine. Dans and Damen have long done business in Russia, and Dans has regularly shared social media posts that reflect a pro-Kremlin viewpoint.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want a peaceful Arctic, we want a peaceful world,\u201d he said at an event a few days after he announced plans to travel to Moscow. \u201cRussia and the United States gotta get along for that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\nA nuclear powered Russian icebreaker in the port of Murmansk after conducting ice trials in the Arctic Ocean in 2020. The Arctic\u2019s melting ice has geopolitical consequences, with Russia and China conducting joint military exercises in the region.<\/span> Pavel Lvov\/Sputnik via AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Opining so broadly on foreign policy is \u201cfar beyond\u201d the Arctic Research Commission\u2019s scientific mandate, said Fran Ulmer, who served as commission chair for more than nine years before being replaced by Trump in 2020. \u201cAnd certainly outside the bounds of what the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has done in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dans, whose consultancy Almiranta Strategies \u201cadvises investors and businesses working in the Arctic,\u201d according to his profile on the Arctic commission\u2019s website, is far from the first in the Trump administration to mingle public and personal interests. The finances of many senior officials and the industries they regulate have drawn scrutiny as Trump has disarmed government safeguards against conflicts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s become standard for people to pursue their personal financial interest,\u201d said Robert Weissman, co-president of the nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen.<\/p>\n
Under the law, Dans\u2019 position gives him access to government information from other federal agencies \u2014 an arrangement that could benefit his private interests. Such potential conflicts are typically governed by federal ethics rules. But the nature of Dans\u2019 role affords him more leeway than other appointees. Commission members are not considered government employees and thus not required to file an ethics form disclosing conflicts.<\/p>\n
Indeed, a White House official told ProPublica that Dans\u2019 consulting work did not constitute a conflict of interest for that very reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom Dans is doing a great job leading the Arctic Research Commission, and his shipbuilding expertise has helped him succeed in this role,\u201d said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. \u201cThe President appreciates all he is doing to advance American interests in the Arctic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House official said Dans is one of two commission members the law designates as representatives of \u201cthe interests of industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Dans\u2019 lack of research experience stands out. The other industry rep is a Ph.D. and former director of the United States Geological Survey.<\/p>\n
Dans declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this story and did not respond to written questions from ProPublica, but he told The New York Times this year that his post did not preclude him from working in private business.<\/p>\n
The Arctic commission has arguably never been more important. The region is warming at unprecedented rates, accelerating sea-level rise and causing severe weather in the U.S. and elsewhere. The melting ice also has geopolitical consequences. Russia and China are conducting joint military exercises in the far north. New shipping lanes have opened there. And mineral deposits are becoming potentially more accessible.<\/p>\n
At a public appearance in July, Dans cited the commission\u2019s four priorities: military and national security, energy security, economic development in the Arctic and \u201cwhat we\u2019ll call \u2018community security.\u2019\u201d He did not define the term.<\/p>\n
From Russia, With Love<\/h3>\n
Dans has long been taken with Russia, the country that has by far the most Arctic coastline.<\/p>\n
His fondness dates back at least to seventh grade, when he says he was recruited to learn Russian in his Maryland public school. He later visited Moscow as an exchange student, then returned to work in finance in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n
He worked at a private equity fund financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which aimed to grow the private sector after the Soviet Union\u2019s breakup. In a LinkedIn post last year, he reminisced about how he and Kirill Dmitriev, a Harvard-educated banker who now serves as Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s intermediary with Trump officials, traveled in the same circles early in their finance careers.<\/p>\nRussian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s envoy Kirill Dmitriev last year. Dans has reminisced on social media about working in similar circles as Dmitriev after the fall of the Soviet Union.<\/span> Dmitri Lovetsky\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Decades later, in Trump\u2019s first term as president, Dans landed a job in the Treasury Department as a senior policy adviser for international affairs. There, he served on a secret National Security Council task force on U.S. control of Greenland, a role first reported by The New Yorker. A former Trump administration official told ProPublica the group\u2019s purpose was to strengthen the United States\u2019 strategic position in Greenland and devise policies to bring the two closer.<\/p>\n
Perhaps because of that work, Trump named Dans to the Arctic Research Commission for the first time in late 2020. His tenure was short-lived. When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the new administration fired Dans and three other Trump appointees.<\/p>\n
Dans was angry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were fired without notice and anonymously slandered by the White House for \u2018lacking relevant expertise,\u2019\u201d he wrote in The Hill. \u201cAt the time, I was the first commissioner in the agency\u2019s 37-year history to speak fluent Russian, the language of the world\u2019s largest Arctic nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dans launched an investment firm with two other former Trump Treasury officials, but it was short-lived, closing in late 2023. That year, Dans said on Substack that he was the \u201cfirst American\u201d to launch an effort to buy the Helsinki Shipyard in Finland, where about half the global icebreaker fleet was built. One of its Russian owners at the time was a business partner of a former Putin deputy minister. The effort failed.<\/p>\n
He traveled the world, talking with officials in places like Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Romania. He lobbied on behalf of the Kazakhstan Embassy and that country\u2019s state-owned national oil and gas company, records show. He devised policy recommendations \u201cfor Ukraine\u2019s postwar reconstruction\u201d as a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, his LinkedIn profile says. He also contributed to Heritage\u2019s federal workforce-slashing Project 2025, of which his twin brother Paul was director.<\/p>\n
Then in May 2024, he launched a nonprofit called American Daybreak. Its goal was to foster ties between the U.S. and Greenland.<\/p>\n
After Trump\u2019s victory, Dans promised in comments on Substack that \u201cthe next Trump Admin is going to Make America a Great Arctic (MAGA) nation!\u201d In early January 2025, Dans and American Daybreak helped arrange a visit by Donald Trump Jr. and late conservative activist Charlie Kirk to the Arctic island. He then sought to bring Vice President JD Vance\u2019s wife, Usha, to watch a popular dog sled race (the trip was scaled back after protests). Dans also enlisted Greenland\u2019s most outspoken MAGA enthusiast, a bricklayer named J\u00f8rgen Boassen, whom Dans has called a \u201cgood friend,\u201d to generate support for U.S. control of Greenland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Best Icebreakers in the World\u201d<\/h3>\n
Dans was not named to a new full-time post in the second Trump administration. But he remained in the Trump orbit.<\/p>\n
He was a frequent guest on conservative activist and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon\u2019s \u201cWar Room\u201d podcast. He spoke for one episode from Romania, plugging far-right Romanian presidential candidate George Simion (who was later seen with Republicans at the Kennedy Center cutting up a cake shaped like Greenland with American flag frosting). \u201cThere\u2019s a phenomenon here that\u2019s the silent George Simion voter, kind of like your silent Trump voter,\u201d Dans told Bannon. \u201cAnd that\u2019s significant.\u201d (Simion lost and afterward unsuccessfully sought to have the election annulled.)<\/p>\n
By August of last year, Dans found another opportunity in the private sector. He posted on LinkedIn that he was \u201cvery excited to announce that I am working with Damen Shipyards Group, one of the world\u2019s leading shipbuilders.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, Dutch prosecutors were investigating the company for supplying Russia with equipment that they said could be used for military purposes, in violation of European sanctions. In his post, Dans shared a photo of himself arm-in-arm with three high-ranking company executives, including Rutger Dolk, who was later detained by Dutch authorities as part of the probe. The case is ongoing. (Dolk did not respond to a request for comment. In response to questions, Damen shared a press release that said it \u201chas always acted in accordance with the applicable sanctions packages and that full transparency has been exercised about its activities.\u201d)<\/p>\nDans\u2019 LinkedIn post announcing his work with Damen Shipyards. Dutch prosecutors were investigating the company at the time for supplying Russia with equipment that could have been used for military purposes. Rutger Dolk, far right, a company executive, was later detained as part of the probe.\u00a0<\/span> Screenshot and redactions by ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Dans said he was working with the shipbuilder \u201cto bring some of the best icebreakers in the world to the United States\u201d and noted that the U.S. Navy had recently chosen Damen \u201cto help it fast-track a new fleet\u201d of a different type of vessel: up to 35 medium-sized ships to move troops and supplies to shorelines. According to records, the Navy bought the designs for the ship from Damen for $3.3 million without going through the typical bidding process, saying it would save time and money to go with a \u201cproven\u201d design. (The Navy did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n
In December, Trump appointed Dans to head the Arctic Research Commission. The announcement said Dans\u2019 primary focus as a businessman was \u201cshipbuilding and transportation where, among other projects, he is leading an effort to develop icebreakers and ice-class vessels for the United States while helping restore America\u2019s Maritime Base.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, Dans has championed Damen in conversations and at a public appearance. In April, he said that \u201coutside of the commission, I wear a hat working for one of the world\u2019s largest shipbuilders, which is a group called Damen.\u201d<\/p>\n
While ProPublica was reporting this story, Damen terminated its agreement with Dans, which would have paid him if the company got a contract to build an icebreaker.<\/p>\n
If Dans was seeking to advance Damen\u2019s interests, he may have been required under the law to register either as a lobbyist or a foreign agent, said Josh Rosenstein, an attorney who is an expert on the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Documents show he\u2019d done neither.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt certainly would raise questions, you know, in my mind about what sort of interactions he, on behalf of Damen, had with the U.S. government,\u201d Rosenstein said. \u201cAnd with whom.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House pushed back. \u201cThese so-called \u2018experts\u2019 have no idea what they are talking about,\u201d said Kelly, the spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Whether Dans has other business ties that could impact his government job is unclear. When at the Treasury, he reported holding a stake in Global Restaurant Management LLC, the parent company of a firm that operated multiple Papa Johns restaurants in Russia at the time. The status of that investment \u2014 which Dans reported had a value of between $250,000 and $500,000 \u2014 isn\u2019t publicly known today because he\u2019s no longer required to disclose his financial interests.<\/p>\n
Christopher Wynne, who headed Global Restaurant Management, said he could not discuss another person\u2019s investments.<\/p>\n
Unlike most high-level presidential appointees, the Arctic commission chair \u2014 who is eligible only for a stipend of up to about $55,000 a year \u2014 is not a federal employee under the law. And while the commission has a policy seeking to prevent conflicts of interest, there are no penalties for violating it.<\/p>\n
Dans\u2019 outside commitments could be problematic if he used his access to the federal government to improperly benefit another employer or country, said Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House and other agencies during Republican and Democratic presidencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that he has foreign entanglements and access to government-wide information,\u201d she said, \u201cit should raise national security concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
ProPublica asked the White House about Canter\u2019s comments but it did not respond.<\/p>\n
A Chilly Reception in Greenland<\/h3>\nProtesters gathered outside the U.S. Consulate this January in Nuuk after Trump threatened to annex Greenland.<\/span> Evgeniy Maloletka\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Tensions over Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, have flared since Dans returned to the Arctic commission.<\/p>\n
A month into Dans\u2019 tenure as commission chair, Trump said he would take Greenland \u201cone way or the other.\u201d He initially refused to rule out military force. Dans echoed Trump, telling the BBC that month that \u201ceverything\u2019s on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Dans is a minor player in the federal government, \u201cwhen he speaks, international audiences and officials see him as representing U.S. policy,\u201d said Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In his first five months as chair, Dans spoke often to the foreign press and traveled to locales that included Denmark, Norway, Italy and Canada \u2014 as well as Mar-a-Lago in Florida and the Explorer\u2019s Club in New York City, records show. The commission spent about $87,000 on his travel expenses.<\/p>\n
He did not return to Greenland. But the administration\u2019s rhetoric put Denmark on a war footing. The country sent soldiers to Greenland armed with explosives and plans to blow up airfields in the event of an American invasion. At one point, a Greenlandic politician told ProPublica, some schoolchildren were instructed to practice hiding under their desks in case of such an event.<\/p>\n
Greenlanders have repeated a refrain: Open for business, not for sale. Dans\u2019 remarks only seem to have further deepened divisions. In February, while at a conference in Norway, he was caught on a hot mic telling a Greenlandic politician that \u201cthe check\u2019s in the mail.\u201d A former chairman of the Arctic Research Commission, Michael Sfraga, was at the same conference and publicly told the politician to \u201crip the check up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has continued to press the cause. In mid-July, he posted a picture on Truth Social of a map that included Greenland with the American flag superimposed on it.<\/p>\n
The rhetoric has had consequences for Arctic research. Several Danish researchers said they will no longer participate in research with the U.S. One noted that her colleagues avoided Dans at a recent conference.<\/p>\n
Dans\u2019 current role in Greenland is unclear. He said at a recent conference he is not involved in talks among negotiators for the U.S., Greenland and Denmark that began earlier this year. In May, Trump\u2019s special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, and the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, attended a business conference in the capital of Nuuk without Dans. Landry and Howery appeared for photo ops and opened a new, bigger consulate building, as protesters shouted outside.<\/p>\n
A White House official told ProPublica that Greenland is \u201ccritical from the standpoint of U.S. national security\u201d and \u201cwe are very optimistic that we\u2019re on a good trajectory\u201d in the diplomatic talks. The official did not address Dans\u2019 role.<\/p>\n
Reposting Russian Propaganda<\/h3>\n
Official visits to Russia have been exceedingly rare since the U.S. and its European allies froze ties with the country after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, yet at his appearance in Anchorage in April Dans announced that he was planning to go to Moscow \u201cprobably in the next month\u201d to discuss research cooperation. The trip never happened; the State Department\u2019s official guidance on Russia is \u201cDo Not Travel for Any Reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about Dans\u2019 push for reestablishing ties and travel plans, a State Department spokesperson referred questions to Dans.<\/p>\n
His social media feed on X is filled with foreign news accounts, sometimes from outlets sympathetic to the Kremlin.<\/p>\n
He reposted a story last October from Kazakh media on Putin\u2019s warning that the U.S. would fracture relations with Russia if it supplied Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.<\/p>\nDans\u2019 repost on X of a Kazakh media outlet. The post reads: \u201cPutin warned that supplies of \u2018Tomahawk\u2019 missiles to Kyiv would destroy relations between Russia and the United States.\u201d<\/span> Screenshot by ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In May, he wrote of his grandfather\u2019s participation in the perilous Murmansk Run to supply the Soviet Union during World War II. \u201cHappy Victory Day,\u201d Dans wrote in Russian and English, reposting a video of Putin from Russian state media laying flowers at a soldiers\u2019 memorial. The original poster of the video has been called a source of Russian propaganda by the Ukrainian government.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone obviously needs to be incredibly cautious when you\u2019re reposting Russian information,\u201d Conley said, because such posts could promote a narrative that is \u201cagainst U.S. national interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Posting \u201cHappy Victory Day\u201d in Russian may sound innocuous, but it is \u201ca super-loaded thing to do right now,\u201d she added. Putin has conjured Russia\u2019s World War II victory when talking about Ukraine, even equating Ukrainians to Nazis in Germany.<\/p>\n
The White House did not respond to questions about Dans\u2019 Russia-related posts.<\/p>\n
Under Putin, Russia has tied its future to the Arctic and the region\u2019s natural resources, including liquefied natural gas. U.S. sanctions, which targeted the country\u2019s energy sector, have set those efforts back \u2014 something that Russia has sought to reverse in ongoing talks with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Dans has remarked on the developments on social meda, calling Dmitriev, the Russian who now serves as a key Putin negotiator with the Trump administration, \u201cthe Kremlin\u2019s ace in the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re older now and have some grey hair, but it\u2019s neat to see who the Trump Administration is negotiating with,\u201d Dans wrote of Dmitriev, who rose to head one of Russia\u2019s sovereign wealth funds before being sanctioned by the Biden Treasury Department in 2022 for his ties to Putin and work raising funds from the U.S.<\/p>\n
Asked about Dans\u2019 calls for cooperation, Kelly, the White House spokesperson, said: \u201cPresident Trump and his entire administration are willing to work with anyone in order to advance American interests, including peace in the Russia-Ukraine War. This approach has helped the United States bring both sides of the conflict together for historic peace talks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dans seemed to downplay any differences with the Trump administration over Russia in one recent appearance, where he told an audience that included State Department officials, Russian Embassy personnel and Greenlandic diplomats that \u201cgetting Russia-Ukraine war ended, I think, is a priority. Stopping the killing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the following month, in July, Dans opened and closed his remarks at a conference in Aspen by calling Russia a \u201cneighbor.\u201d He again urged that the U.S. repair its relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be able to communicate with the Russians,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some very important things to clear up with them with Ukraine, absolutely, but we have to work towards peace in the Arctic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly said there was \u201cnothing controversial about Mr. Dans\u2019 remarks calling for an end to years of bloodshed and expanded dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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