US and Denmark reach deal over Greenland

Celia Hatton (0:00)

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Celia Hatten, and in the early hours of Saturday, September 19th, these are our main stories. President Trump says he's reached an agreement with Greenland and Denmark that he says gives the US permanent control over security in Greenland. Mr. Trump also signed into law a bill that gives him more powers to oppose trade sanctions on countries that buy energy from Russia to get Moscow to stop its war on Ukraine. And the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, wants more safety rules around AI, perhaps even a kill switch. Also in this podcast...

James Purcell (0:42)

If anyone finds that fun, I'm not sure they understand games and the conventional definition.

Celia Hatton (0:49)

A board game that's being played in England that's so complex, no one has ever finished in.

We'll begin in Washington where there's been a series of announcements from the White House. In a surprise diplomatic development, Donald Trump says the United States, Denmark and Greenland have reached a security deal for Greenland, a Danish territory. And in another potentially important move, Mr. Trump has banned a number of major media organizations from the White House. We'll get to both of those stories in a moment. But first, the president has signed into law a bill that allows him to impose tough new sanctions on Russia in addition to severe trade sanctions on countries that buy energy from Russia. The bill was championed by the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham before he died in July and gives the president the tools to try to force Moscow to end its war on Ukraine.

So, how will this legislation allow President Trump to pressure Russia? Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, joined us from Washington.

Sarah Smith (1:57)

This allows for the most stringent sanctions on Russia since Donald Trump came back into office. It targets President Putin, some of his fellow ministers and associates, and some Russian oligarchs personally. But the really big and what Congress thinks effective part of this bill is it allows President Trump to target Russia's energy industry, which is of course what has allowed them to pay for a lot of the assault on Ukraine. And it does this by giving the president the authority to place sanctions on other countries, third countries that are the biggest purchasers of Russian oil and gas. So other nations who are keeping Russia afloat by buying their energy could face 100 percent sanctions on goods that they are exporting to the United States. But it doesn't trigger that automatically. What it does is allow President Trump to make the choice as to whether he wants to do that on the biggest purchasers of Russian energy. Now, they include countries like China and India. And there are lots of other reasons why he may not want to impose punitive sanctions on those countries.

Celia Hatton (3:00)

It's interesting you bring up China, Sarah, because it's one of the biggest purchasers of Russian energy.

This comes at an interesting time, doesn't it? Donald Trump is signing this bill just days before the high-stakes meeting with Xi Jinping next week, China's leader. Are we expecting the president to use this new bill against countries like China?

Sarah Smith (3:20)

Neither the president nor the White House have said if or when he would attempt to use these measures. This was a bill that has taken a year to get through Congress and eventually got a lot of bipartisan support. It was initiated by the late Senator Lindsey Graham. And it's in his memory that it's now been passed. The president has said supportive things about it before, giving us no indication whether he intends to use these powers. I would be very surprised if he were to put additional sanctions on China before or during the state visit from President Xi, which is taking place at the end of next week.

Celia Hatton (3:52)

Well, at the same time as having these extra powers to sanction Russia and some of Russia's energy buyers, there are also reports in The New York Times that Mr. Trump is willing to offer Vladimir Putin business deals to get him to stop the fighting. What more do we know about this carrots and sticks measure?

Sarah Smith (4:12)

We know that The Times is reporting that Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Wyckoff, the real estate magnate, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been in Moscow talking to President Putin, were offering some business deals talking about the possibility of signing some before a deal with Ukraine had been done. So it has always been on the table. It's always been known that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are both very keen to reestablish a business relationship. What we're told, his envoys were talking about in order to try and persuade Vladimir Putin to move closer towards doing a peace deal, the idea that some of these deals could be put in place before a peace in Ukraine had been established, but with it being contingent on the idea that he would be moving towards that.