AP — Location, location, location: Greenland’s position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy. But for whom?

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 this mineral-rich island that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

Trump, who has said repeatedly he wants to take over Greenland since he entered office for the second time early last year, told The Atlantic magazine on Sunday: “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense.”

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Greenland’s own government also opposes US designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future.

The island, 80 percent 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 Greenland is strategically important to Arctic security.

Greenland 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 defense of North America since World War II, when the US occupied Greenland........

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