NATO's 'Trump whisperer' treads carefully on Greenland and defense

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00:00President Donald Trump has reiterated his desire to annex the autonomous territory of

00:04Greenland from Denmark. Trump said today that he thinks it will happen, adding the US needs

00:10Greenland for international security. While his comments are sure to have rubbed up NATO

00:16Secretary General Mark Rutter the wrong way, he was sat right beside him. The two sides holding

00:21talks at a time when Europe's security is on the line with the US's growing collision with Russia.

00:27Trump has also been speaking on Putin's latest comments. The US leader said

00:31the Russian president made a very promising statement.

00:35Let's take a listen to what Trump and Rutter have been saying.

00:57We also discuss defence production because we need to produce more weaponry. We are not doing

01:17enough. And not in the US, not in Europe. And we are lacking behind when you compare to the

01:23Chinese. And you have a huge defence industrial base. Europeans buying four times more here

01:30than the other way around, which is good because you have a strong defence industry,

01:34but we need to do more there to make sure that we are hand-potting the production

01:38and kill the red tape. So I would love to work with you on that.

01:42Let's speak to David Smith now. He's the Guardian's Washington bureau chief.

01:47David, good to have you. Just lay out for us what was said about Russia and Ukraine,

01:52particularly during that meeting. Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump overall welcomed

01:58the latest developments. He said Vladimir Putin responded was positive, but he also said it was

02:05not quite the complete statement he was looking for. He said he's very happy to talk to Putin

02:11about moving the situation forward and will certainly be disappointed if the Russians don't

02:17comply with this. I think it illustrated that there's been an interesting shift here after

02:24weeks of criticising Ukraine and even describing President Zelensky as a dictator. Now the pressure

02:31is on Putin and Russia to comply. And as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, the ball is in their

02:39court. It's going to be an interesting test of the Trump-Putin relationship, which we've seen

02:44for years appears to be close. And Trump has been much criticised for that. Now comes the big test.

02:51Will all that diplomacy pay off? And will Putin make a concession? Certainly in Putin's response,

02:57again, it was a bit of a mixed bag. He suggested he was fine with this ceasefire in principle,

03:04but he certainly had a lot of questions to ask. And he made some ominous remarks about

03:11a long-term peace deal, wanting to address the root causes of this crisis, which I think will

03:18alarm some in Europe in terms of what he meant by that. So it still feels very provisional,

03:25very up in the air. We know US envoy Steve Whitkoff is potentially meeting Putin in Moscow

03:32relatively soon, today or tomorrow. I think it's now a case of watch this space.

03:38And meanwhile, there was that awkward moment during the meeting when Trump said that the US

03:44annexation, a potential annexation of Greenland will happen. Of course, Ruta was sat right next

03:50to him. Denmark is a NATO member. How will Ruta handle Trump's expansionist views?

03:57Yeah, I mean, really extraordinary. The age that we're living in, that these conversations

04:03happen in public, and we've had a succession of foreign leaders from King Hussein of Jordan to

04:11Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, and most infamously, Vladimir Zelensky, of course, all

04:17put on the spots with the media watching as Donald Trump makes highly unconventional,

04:22norm-shattering remarks. And you always wonder how these world leaders are going to respond.

04:28A journalist asked Donald Trump a couple of questions about his plans to

04:32annex Greenland. And Trump said it will happen. And he even half-joked, it seemed, about

04:41sending more troops to Greenland. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. He turned to his defense

04:45secretary, Pete Hexer, and said, don't answer that one, Pete. Pretty bizarre and difficult for

04:54a head of NATO to respond. And Mark Ruta, interestingly, tackled it head on. He said

05:01very clearly, NATO is not going to have any part in the future of Greenland, and that's not a

05:08matter for NATO. But he did then praise Donald Trump for raising this national and international

05:14security issue about the future of Greenland, how China especially is using the shipping lanes

05:21there, how it could fall into the Russian sphere of influence. He was grateful to Trump for at

05:26least highlighting that issue. And that really fitted a pattern of the way Ruta played the whole

05:32meeting. He praised Trump at every opportunity, for example, on his dealings with North Korea,

05:39and certainly Ukraine, and in other areas. And in that sense, I think he was using the Macron

05:45and Starmer playbook. You feed Donald Trump lots of compliments, and then occasionally,

05:51you also stand up to him. David, thank you so much for bringing us up to speed there. David

05:58Smith reporting live there from Washington. Well, let's get you the latest.

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