Trump touts Greenland-Arctic deal framework after NATO meeting (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Welcome, thanks for being with us. And head-spinning changes really on the global front because in the last half an hour, President Trump has announced that the framework of a future deal has been agreed over the Danish semi-autonomous territory of Greenland. The President had not ruled out the use of force to take over the island, but now he has posted on his Truth Social platform saying, based on a very productive meeting that I've had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutter, we've formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and in fact the entire Arctic region. Mr Trump went on to say he would not impose additional tariffs he'd previously threatened on European allies. While the US President and Mark Rutter met in the Swiss resort of Davos, hours after Mr Trump told world leaders gathered there that he would not use force to take the Danish territory. But he again insists. He also insisted that the US needs to own the island for national and international security. Well, let's cross live to Washington and our chief North America correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue. Gary, things really moving very quickly in the last half an hour with President Trump posting this news on Truth Social.

[00:01:16] Speaker 2: Yes, and I mean, it's difficult to decipher what's going on here, to be honest with you. We'll be honest with our viewers. This is a, as you put it, head-spinning series of developments over the last hour, let alone the last 24, 48 hours. Even before that meeting that the President went into with Mark Rutter, the NATO Secretary General, you know, he was still talking about having to own Denmark. He was asked whether he thought there was a reasonable price for Greenland. Rather, he said yes. You know, there was still this whole business of possessing the island, having the technology to do that. The title to the island, in his words, was still very much uppermost in his mind. There's absolutely no mention whatsoever of ownership in this statement from him in terms of a future framework agreement, a great solution, as he puts it, for the United States and for all NATO nations, but no mention of ownership. So where has that gone? I mean, what can Mark Rutter have offered him that has led the President not only to have, originally, sort of ditched the idea of any military action, which was pretty unrealistic in the first place, but also ditched the idea of these tariffs against these European countries and the UK that he was threatening to go ahead with? It's difficult to discern. We're going to have to wait to see how this is developed and how this is fleshed out, because at the moment, this is just, you know, a bunch of words on a piece of paper. We don't have any detail of what the agreement is. And it must have been iconic. And I think what can have happened in that meeting, what they can have offered him to have got him to this place if he wasn't already heading there through other pressures on him.

[00:03:03] Speaker 1: And, Gary, we should say that Scott Besant, who'd been in Davos ahead of President Trump's arrival, had warned people not to overreact. Whether there's been some sort of work that's gone on behind the scenes, we don't know, of course. But the President had faced a lot of pushback, really an unprecedented... an unprecedented level of pushback from Canada and from European leaders in the last 24 hours. And we just don't know whether, you know, that had an impact.

[00:03:34] Speaker 2: We don't. But that sort of thing typically doesn't have all that much of an impact on this President. He relishes getting a rise out of his enemies and his allies, quite frankly. He has a belief, and we saw that in his speech this morning at Davos, he has a belief that America can do what it likes. He said very recently, the only thing that constrains his action around the world is his own moral compass. He believes his power is unlimited. Now, sure, there can be a lot of rhetoric involved in that, but there is a core of truth in his belief in terms of where America is in the world, its military power, its economic might. And he believes that should be projected in the... sort of interests of an America-first policy. So, I mean, it's intriguing. I think many people thought the military option was unrealistic, let's be honest. But the tariffs were a very real thing. These are things that he does. And to have these evaporate in the space of half an hour with the Secretary General of NATO is mind-boggling and bewildering. And again, it brings me back to the idea, what can they possibly have offered him that's stopped him... ...from talking about ownership all of a sudden? Now, this could all be, you know, pie in the sky. This could all reverse in the blink of an eye because these things can do with this president. We can get another truth social in half an hour time that says the opposite or says something different or backs away from it. But at the moment, what we're left with is a sort of a period of time, a compressed period of time, where it's played on. It's played on. It's played out in the sort of space of what might be a sort of dramatic sort of political drama on television. You know, an hour in front of your Netflix, this is, rather than international political diplomacy in the real world.

[00:05:36] Speaker 1: Yeah. Gary O'Donoghue, thank you very much indeed for that update.