And he has wisely left all options on the table, no matter how unlikely, by declining to rule out economic coercion or force as to acquire it. And China's great interest in Greenland must not be allowed to morph into what happened with the  Panama Canal. Interestingly, a new poll indicates that Greenlanders are very open to becoming part of the United States.

At a high level, President Trump's focus on Greenland is about its increasing importance to U.S. national security and the energy dominance that he has promised to deliver. The increased importance of Greenland in these two areas, versus its importance during the height of the Cold War, come from changes in polar ice coverage making once impassible sea lanes and impenetrable territories far less so. This increased accessibility to the Arctic Sea and land masses, coupled with powerful icebreakers, has opened new opportunities for vastly increased merchant shipping, much better access to the Arctic's vast natural resources, and increased human habitation.

The improved access to the Arctic has also increased the need for the United States to secure its northern borders as more Chinese and Russian naval vessels with missiles capable of striking the United States ply the waters around Greenland.

Elaborating a bit, Greenland is placed strategically along two potential shipping routes through the Arctic: The Northwest Passage bordering the North America's northern coastline and the Transpolar Sea Route right through the center of the Arctic Ocean. With changes in ice coverage, these routes have seen big increases in ships transiting them, both military and commercial. This makes Greenland far more strategic than it was during the Cold War.

Further enhancing the strategic value of Greenland is that roughly two-thirds of it is actually in the Arctic Circle. This makes it is an excellent hopping off point/staging area for accessing the Arctic region that is highly complementary to the 15 percent of Arctic territory the United States controls via Alaska. Because about one-half (53 percent) of  the Arctic is part of Russia, fully leveraging Greenland, as well as Alaska, is essential for the United States' ability to compete for presence in and control of the Arctic region. But merely leveraging Greenland will not be enough. To be positioned to compete for Arctic influence and control, you need a very critical manmade resource that the United States is short on and Russia is rich in—icebreakers