00:00Let's start with that U-turn by the U.S. President just announced we react of course immediately here at France24 after an incendiary speech at Davos where he threw his weight around with a sequence of half-truths and insults against the rest of the world, especially Europe and NATO over Greenland.
00:14It's been announced in the past few minutes that Donald Trump has dropped his threat to impose tariffs on a number of nations, including France, for their stance on Greenland, saying he reached the outlines of a deal with NATO on the island's future.
00:27Let's bring in Dave Keating joining us live. Dave, good evening to you. It is a fast-moving story, this one, isn't it?
00:36Trump's saying one thing in his speech at Davos, and now it appears taking a complete U-turn. Give us your sense of where we're at now.
00:44Yeah, this is completely mystifying because just a few hours ago, Donald Trump reiterated that the U.S. must have Greenland and that the tariffs are designed to get Greenland.
00:55And then just a couple hours later, he says he's reached a deal with NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta and he's dropping the tariffs.
01:03So either Mark Ruta just gave Donald Trump Greenland, which seems unlikely and actually not possible, or Trump has majorly chickened out here.
01:15Trump has backed away from these tariffs and he's trying to sell this to his supporters as having reached a new deal with new concessions.
01:24But the fact of the matter is there really are no substantive concessions that Mark Ruta could have given him.
01:31There were no Danish government representatives there at that meeting, as far as we know.
01:36So what may have happened here is that Mark Ruta explained to Trump the existing rights that the U.S. has in Greenland under its treaty with Denmark,
01:45which is basically to deploy an unlimited number of troops and establish an unlimited number of bases.
01:52These are the rights that the U.S. has always had.
01:55That is the argument that Denmark and others have been stressing to Trump and his officials over the past weeks.
02:01It may be that Mark Ruta sold this to Trump as something new or Trump understands that it's not new,
02:09but he's going to try to sell it to his supporters as something new so that it looks like he didn't chicken out here.
02:16The problem is this story has gotten huge attention both in Europe and in the United States.
02:21His backers, both in the Congress and just his rank-and-file followers, have been saying for weeks that the existing rights that the U.S. has in Greenland are not enough,
02:34that they need to control the territory, in Trump's words, saying that the U.S. would have no interest in defending Greenland unless it owns Greenland.
02:42So it's going to be a very, very hard sell for them to try to convince people that the existing rights that the U.S. had in Denmark, in Greenland rather, are something new.
02:54Now, we still don't have information about what this supposed deal is, so it may be that there's something in there that the U.S. didn't have before,
03:01but I'm really struggling to think of what Mark Ruta possibly could have offered Trump that he would have been able to offer him,
03:09and that is actually something new.
03:13Dave Keating, as always, we really appreciate your insight on these matters.
03:18It is a fast-moving story, perhaps more to come.
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