The Associated Press: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 US 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 US as a partner in their defence.Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures.Greenland’s own government opposes US designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future.The island, 80 per cent 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:

Trump says America needs Greenland for securityTrump has mulled territorial expansion via Greenland, Canada and Venezuela during his second term. But of the three, he comes back to Greenland most often, arguing that it is necessary for US security to be in control of the Arctic island.“Greenland is very important to the United States, but it’s not important to Denmark,” Trump said Wednesday during a NATO summit. “We need it for protection of the world, not just the United States.”Earlier in his term, he would not rule out taking the island by military force to secure its “right, title and ownership,” though the president has since said he’s taken military options off the table.Trump says the US needs Greenland to deter threats from Russia and China, and has repeatedly made false claims of Chinese and Russian military forces lurking off the island’s coastline.

Greenland’s location is keyGreenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defence of North America since World War II, when the US occupied Greenland to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.