The United States has once again turned its attention to Greenland, this time not through official statements but through a viral meme.

The Americans have the Pituffik Space Base (pronounced Bee-doo-FEEK) in northwestern Greenland. Its 150 personnel run missile defense and space surveillance. Its location at the top of the globe, not far from the North Pole, allows its radar to detect missiles in their earliest moments of flight.

"All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, where we already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it back to Denmark not long ago," Trump said.

The president's push to gain control of Greenland, a Danish territory, has created anxiety about the future of the alliance throughout Europe.

The last Nazis on Greenland were captured in October 1944, when American soldiers raided a hidden German weather station on the island’s desolate east coast and took dozens of prisoners. Within a year, Germany would be defeated and World War II would be over.

FactCheck.org lays out claims President Trump made before announcing his “framework" of a deal on Greenland with NATO's secretary general.

The Arctic territory is of strategic importance, under the flight paths that nuclear-armed missiles from China and Russia could take on their way to incinerating targets in the United States, and vice versa.

During a speech Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump said that he would not use force to take Greenland, an island the State Department says the United States needs to control to counter threats in the surrounding Arctic sea by Russia and China.

President Trump on Wednesday sent a message to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, telling him that his country “lives because of the United States,” days after the prime minister defended Greenland against Trump’s effort to acquire the island territory.

Explore the complex geopolitical dynamics surrounding Greenland as it grapples with U. S. ambitions and Danish control, highlighting the island's struggle for self-determination in the face of imperialism.

European lawmakers on Wednesday suspended a trade agreement with the United States over tariff threats issued by President Donald Trump as part of his push to acquire Greenland.