Donald Trump has repeated his desire to control Greenland as a matter of national security, targeting Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic. Competition is heating up over shipping routes and stores of natural resources.The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC World Service. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you got this podcast.
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Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson with your weekly bonus from The Global Story, which brings you a single story with depth and insight from the BBC's best journalists. There's a new episode every weekday. Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your pods and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode.
Here's my colleague Katya Adler.
During Donald Trump's first time in office, when he said he wanted to acquire Greenland, many dismissed this as hyperbole, a nonsense even.
But now, days away from taking office a second time, he seems on an expansionist role, taunting Canada, it should become the USA's 51st state, that he wants America to reacquire the Panama Canal and insisting that Greenland must become a US property for strategic security, he said.
People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security. That's for the free world. I'm talking about protecting the free world.
Greenland, the biggest island in the world, is an autonomous Danish territory, rich in oil, gas reserves and other natural resources like zinc, gold and copper. It sits between the US and Russia and is already home to a US military base. Its geostrategic significance is very clear.
It's also hugely important in terms of climate conversations and its melting ice is also opening up new profitable maritime trade routes, a development catching the attention of countries further afield, like China. With all these competing interests, could we be looking at a brewing cold war in the Arctic, or as some are calling it, an ice war? It made headlines all over the world this week.
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