8:36Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on ABC News’ “This Week” on Jan. 25, 2026.ABC News
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that a potential Greenland deal between President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte would be a "much more fulsome for the United States."
Trump announced a "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland" after meeting with Rutte at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
Trump backed off weeks of threats that he would use force to obtain Greenland and backtracked on imposing tariffs on European countries who opposed his takeover efforts. Questions remain on many critical details of the possible deal, including ownership of territory.
ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl asked if the deal was essentially the same agreement that's been in place since the 1950s.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on ABC News’ “This Week” on Jan. 25, 2026.ABC News
"I promise you, the deal is not what we had before. It is much more fulsome for the United States." Bessent told ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Bessent also addressed Trump's threat to impose 100% tariffs on Canada if it moves ahead on a trade deal with China.
This month, Canada negotiated lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for lower import taxes on their farm products.
"We can't let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S.," Bessent said. "We have a USMCA agreement, but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I'm not sure what Prime Minister [Mark] Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos. I don't think he's doing the best job for the Canadian people."
Here are more highlights from Bessent's interview:
On U.S. relations with NATO allies
Karl: I mean, do you understand why our European allies, the ones you're negotiating with, are insulted by [Trump's criticism of NATO's contributions in Afghanistan]?
Bessent: Again, I think President Trump is laser-focused on the strongest NATO possible that he has worked to negotiate a settlement on Russia-Ukraine. The U.S. has made much bigger sacrifices than the European has — Europeans have. We have put 25 percent tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India. They — and just to be clear again, the Russian oil goes into India. The refined products come out, and the Europeans buy the refined products. They are financing the war against themselves.
On federal agent shooting Minneapolis man
Karl: And before you go, I know this is not your lane, but I got to ask you about what's happened in Minneapolis. As a member of the of the Trump Cabinet, are you concerned to see another American citizen ends up dead, shot by federal law enforcement?
Bessent: Jonathan, it's a tragedy when anyone dies, but I can tell you the situation on the ground there is being stirred up by Governor Walz. I was out there two weeks ago. Governor Walz declined to provide a security detail for me to go into the Minnesota capital with the state police. So, he is fomenting the — he is fomenting chaos because there is substantial waste, fraud and abuse. My job as treasury secretary is to investigate that and I think that, you know, this chaos that's going out there. And again, I am sorry that this gentleman is dead but he did bring a nine millimeter semiautomatic weapon with two cartridges to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. I think that there are a lot of paid agitators who are ginning things up and the governor has not done a good job of tamping this down.
Walz has said that the state government had taken steps to investigate fraud, and continues to work on combating it, with the Minnesota governor saying in a statement earlier this month that Minnesota "will win the fight against the fraudsters. But the political gamesmanship we're seeing from Republicans is only making that fight harder to win."
Sourse: abcnews.go.com