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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.