Greenland's mineral riches are an increasing focus of the U.S. and, as the vice president recently warned, America's rivals.

Cartography has always shaped worldview and geopolitics, and often for the worse. So it does in the era of Donald Trump.

One way or the other,” President Donald Trump told Congress, the United States needs to “get” Greenland, strategically located and rich in rare metals.

Greenland, which President Donald Trump wants to annex on grounds of US national and international security, is a self-governing Danish territory in the Arctic covered in ice, with untapped mineral resources and geostrategic importance.

Donald Trump looked at a world map and saw something he wants – something that, as president of the US, he now says he will take “one way or the other.” It’s Greenland, an autonomous ...