Location, location, location: Greenland’s position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy.Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and U.S. President Donald Trump wants to make sure his country controls the mineral-rich island that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.Trump’s repeated demands for the territory and threats to take it by force have rattled the NATO alliance and discomfited European allies who have long relied on the U.S. as a partner in their defense.Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Greenland’s own government opposes U.S. designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future.
The island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.Here’s why Trump covets Greenland, and why it is strategically important in the Arctic:
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