Trump Davos trip eclipsed by Greenland and NATO tensions (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: President Trump is heading to Davos in Switzerland for the annual gathering of world and business leaders with tensions high over Greenland. He's expected to be around three hours late after he was delayed because of a technical fault on Air Force One. It comes a day after he blasted the UK over its deal to give away the Chagos Islands and revealed private messages from President Macron and the Secretary General of NATO. In a news conference at the White House, the President talked for some time about his accomplishments one year into his presidency. He also denied that his desire to take control of Greenland could result in the breakup of the transatlantic security alliance, NATO. Well, in Davos, he'll come face to face with some of those he has been attacking. European leaders who yesterday at the forum openly criticised him. We'll have the latest from Davos in a moment. But first, here's our North America editor, Sarah Smith, who was at the newsroom.

[00:00:58] Speaker 2: It's certainly not subtle, but it makes the point. President Trump himself posting this AI image on social media of him planting a US flag on Greenland. And this one, showing his supposed NATO allies his plans for Greenland and even Canada. Remember, he won't rule out using military force against another NATO member. If a consequence of your determination to take control of Greenland is the ultimate breakup of the NATO alliance, is that a price you're willing to pay?

[00:01:27] Speaker 3: You mean the breakup of... It's very interesting. So, I think something's going to happen that's going to be very good for everybody. Nobody's done more for NATO than I have, as I said before, in every way. Getting them to go up to 5% of GDP was something that nobody thought was... And pay. At 2%, they weren't paying. At 5%, they are paying. And they're buying a lot of things. And they're giving them, I guess, to Ukraine. That's up to them. But they're giving them to whoever they're giving them to. But they're buying a lot. I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy. And where we're going to be very happy. But we need it for security purposes. We need it for national security and even world security. It's very important. How about it?

[00:02:16] Speaker 2: President Trump was here in person to celebrate his first year in office. But, of course, it's what he's going to do next that we all want to know. He was asked, how far is he prepared to go over Greenland? And all he said was, you'll find out. Donald Trump will land like an avalanche in Davos and reiterate his territorial demands. The Canadian Prime Minister echoed Greenland's right to sovereignty.

[00:02:41] Speaker 4: Every day, we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer. What they must.

[00:02:58] Speaker 2: Also in Davos, the Democrat governor of California, who said world leaders need to stand up to President Trump, not try to pacify him.

[00:03:06] Speaker 5: It's time to stand tall and firm, have a backbone. This is diplomacy with Donald Trump. He's a T-Rex. You mate with him or he devours you. One or the other.

[00:03:18] Speaker 2: President Trump says he's not spoken to either Sir Keir Starmer or Emmanuel Macron since his social media posts about them. But, He doesn't think there will be a problem.

[00:03:26] Speaker 3: I think I get along very well with them. I mean, they always treat me well. They get a little bit rough when I'm not around. But when I'm around, they treat me very nicely. And, you know, I like both of them.

[00:03:40] Speaker 2: Another AI image of American Revolutionary War soldiers charging across the Arctic. It demonstrates Donald Trump's diplomatic approach, his determination to take over Greenland and his unorthodox ways of trying to make it happen. Sarah Smith, BBC News, Washington.

[00:03:58] Speaker 6: About Greenland has really shaken things here. You've seen the reaction from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, calling it a new colonial era. You've seen it from Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, his neighbour, saying that other countries had to diversify their trade. He'd just come back from China, imploring other countries to follow Canada's blueprint. I think that is the key. We often concentrate on what Donald Trump tweets or truths or says when he's talking to the press. What he does matters too, and what the rest of the world does also matters. And at a place like this, they start to have conversations saying, well, it's not just Donald again, but what do we need to do about this? Do we need to work together? And if Donald Trump's actions over the past few days have given some comfort to the idea that the rest of the world needs to work together, he may find that more difficult. He'll be expecting a home audience amongst the business elite. He may find it a little bit more difficult.

[00:05:20] Speaker 1: Well, as I said, President Trump's arrival in Davos, will be delayed for about three hours. The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, has been holding a news conference in the last hour. He said, Mr. Trump's threat of tariffs was linked to countries sending military personnel to Greenland.

[00:05:36] Speaker 7: Well, I'm not going to get ahead of the president. The president obviously believes that national security is economic security. Economic security is national security. And we're not putting a 10% tariff on Greenland. We're putting a 10% tariff on the eight countries that chose to send troops to Greenland. I mean, for those countries to activate their troops, I'm not sure what signal that's supposed to send. It seems pretty quixotic to me. So President Trump has made it clear that we will not outsource our national security or our hemispheric security to any other countries. Our partner, the UK, is letting us down with the base on Diego Garcia, which we had shared together for many, many years. And they want to turn it over to Mauritius. So President Trump is serious here. Just as I said after Liberation Day last year, I would tell everyone, take a deep breath. Do not have this reflexive anger that we've seen and this bitterness. Why don't they sit down, wait for President Trump to get here and listen to his argument? Because I think they're going to be persuaded.

[00:06:59] Speaker 1: Scott Besant, the US Treasury Secretary there, well, he mentioned the UK-US relationship. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not coming to Davos. Here's our Chief Political Correspondent, Henry Zeffman, on that.

[00:07:12] Speaker 8: That is the latest from people I've been speaking to in government just in the last few minutes. He was never going, but there was some suggestion yesterday, after the election, that he was going to Davos. After President Trump's pretty extraordinary tirade against what he labelled the great stupidity of the UK government's approach to the Chagos Islands, there was some suggestion after that that Keir Starmer might decide to go in order to seek a face-to-face meeting to try to smooth things over. Well, he's clearly decided against that. I'm also told that, as it stands, there are no plans for an imminent phone call between the two of them, though all of this comes with the massive health warning, which I think has to attach itself to anything that Donald Trump is doing or saying, which is that, in the UK government, they acknowledge that things can change very quickly.

[00:08:01] Speaker 1: And given that vehement, very direct attack on the UK, calling the handover of the Chagos Islands, as you say, an act of great stupidity, have you sensed any change in course from the British government since that speech on Monday morning by Keir Starmer?

[00:08:17] Speaker 8: Not yet, but I think they are still digesting, I think, the implications of what President Trump said yesterday. I think there are the implications for the deal with the Chagos Islands, but actually, I'm not sure those implications are especially severe. I mean, it is a big deal, given that this involves a US military base for the US president to have decided that he now opposes this deal, having previously supported it. But I think the bigger question, absolutely, as you say, Karin, is where does this leave Keir Starmer's approach to handling Donald Trump? I think the crucial point is that for a year now, a year and a day, Keir Starmer had been thought, and probably thought himself, to have done a better job than almost any other world leader in handling the capriciousness of this very unique US president. Well, perhaps that was true, but as of now, it no longer appears to be true. And I think he will come under pressure to take a much more direct, much more confrontational approach to the US president.

[00:09:18] Speaker 1: And that pressure could be manifesting. Well, we'll get to that itself in Prime Minister's questions a bit later on today, Henry. What is the opposition saying so far about the stance on Greenland?

[00:09:26] Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's very possible that we'll see, for example, the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, pushing Keir Starmer to be more confrontational with Donald Trump. He's been saying that for some time. But actually, the main opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch of the Conservatives, I think will be broadly supportive of the approach that the Prime Minister has taken and is continuing to take, with Donald Trump. She agrees with Keir Starmer on Greenland. She disagrees with Keir Starmer and therefore agrees with Donald Trump on the Chagos Islands. So it's a bit of a kind of tightrope for her to walk. But I'm sure she will draw attention to the fact that the Prime Minister's strategy for handling President Trump appears to be in a very, very, very bad place this morning.