Have Trump and Europe reached a deal on Greenland?
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What exactly is Donald Trump’s plan for Greenland?
Donald Trump began on Wednesday by telling world leaders in more detail why the United States needs to acquire Greenland. He ruled out the use of force and made fresh claims on why Greenland needs to be owned by the United States, deriding European leaders and NATO. But by the end of the day the president announced he no longer plans to impose tariffs on European countries opposing his ambitions for the US to acquire Greenland. In a social media post, Trump said his decision followed a "very productive meeting" with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, while Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a statement that "the day is ending on a better note than it began."
In this episode, Sarah and Anthony start by unpacking Donald Trump’s speech before reconvening to look at the president’s “concepts” of a deal which was cautiously welcomed by NATO as a focus on the “collective efforts of Allies”.
HOSTS:
• Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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This episode was made by George Dabby and Alix Pickles. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | What is going on with Donald Trump and his determination to takeover Greenland? |
| 0:10.8 | There have been a lot of developments today. |
| 0:13.8 | He has now dropped his threats to impose tariffs on any countries who oppose his takeover plan. |
| 0:19.6 | And then he posted this on social media. |
| 0:22.0 | He said, we've formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, |
| 0:26.5 | the entire Arctic region. |
| 0:28.3 | That sounds like good news. |
| 0:29.8 | Earlier, though, his tone was much more bullish when he had this message for world leaders |
| 0:34.4 | in Davos. |
| 0:35.1 | So we want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won't give it. |
| 0:40.3 | We've never asked for anything else, and we could have kept that piece of land, and we didn't. |
| 0:47.3 | So they have a choice. |
| 0:49.3 | You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will remember. In this episode, |
| 0:58.8 | we're going to try and make sense of what this deal could be and what it means for Trump's |
| 1:02.1 | determination to own Greenland. We recorded this episode in two parts, as you can probably tell, |
| 1:07.8 | because it does include some breaking news. We'll start with Donald Trump's earlier address to world leaders in Davos. |
| 1:13.8 | Welcome to AmeriCast. |
| 1:17.4 | AmeriCast from BBC News. |
| 1:20.4 | When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. |
| 1:22.8 | Right away, sir. |
| 1:23.9 | Happy to lick your boot, sir. |
... |
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