Donald Trump has said Russia is only fearful of NATO with the US as a member. 

In a news conference on Friday, the US president claimed: “NATO was gone until I came along”.

“President Putin will tell you that without the United States, he wouldn’t be worried, but he is worried when the United States is involved,” he said.

Mr Trump also alleged the previous and current NATO secretary generals said: “If it wasn’t for Trump, you wouldn’t even have NATO because we were paying the costs of almost all of the countries.”

Mr Trump made the comments as he announced in the White House that Boeing has won a contract to develop the US Air Force’s most sophisticated fighter jet yet.

The new sixth-generation jet would be named F-47, Mr Trump said.

“Nothing in the world comes close to it… it’s something the likes of which nobody has seen before,” he added.

“(The F-47) will be the most lethal aircraft ever built.”

On defence, Mr Trump said the US is also “well-equipped” to fight any potential war with China.

“We don’t want to have a potential war with China. But I can tell you if we did, we’re very well-equipped to handle it,” he said.

He also rejected reports that his adviser Elon Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China – a rare suggestion that his far-reaching role in the administration will face limits.

“Elon has businesses in China,” he said. “And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”

The president confirmed he would be speaking to China’s president Xi Jinping about tariffs. Mr Trump also said there was flexibility on his controversial economic measure.

It comes as Mr Trump expressed enthusiasm for possibly becoming a member of the Commonwealth.

Sharing an article on his Truth Social network about plans to allegedly make the USA the next associate member, the President wrote: “I Love King Charles. Sounds good to me!”

‘Our allies are calling constantly’

The plane’s design remains a closely-held secret, but would likely include stealth, advanced sensors, and cutting-edge engines.

The initial contract to proceed with production on the jets is worth an estimated $20bn (£15.5bn).

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Mr Trump said the jets will be built over several years and “it’s something nobody has ever seen before”.

“Our allies are calling constantly,” Trump said, adding foreign sales could be an option. “They want to buy them also.”

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After saying the US would “tone down” the new jets by 10% for any sales to allies, Trump said: “[It] probably makes sense, because someday, maybe they’re not our allies.”

Critics have questioned the cost and the necessity of the programme as the Pentagon is still struggling to fully produce its current most advanced jet, the F-35, which is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.7tr (£1.01tr) over its lifespan.

‘I’ll pay out of my own pocket’

Meanwhile, Mr Trump said he will pay NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore overtime pay after their trip to the International Space Station lasted nine months longer than planned.

A reporter at the news conference said the pair are not entitled to overtime pay, prompting Mr Trump to say: “If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket.”

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the country’s department of education.

However, the department cannot be dismantled without an act of Congress, which created it in 1979. Republicans have said they will introduce a bill to achieve that.

Mr Trump has long promised to take the agency apart, deriding it as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. It has been a long-time target of conservatives.

The order would leave school policy almost entirely in the hands of states and local boards, a prospect that alarms liberal education advocates.

The president blamed the department for America’s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.

“It’s doing us no good,” Mr Trump said at the White House.

The White House said the department will not close completely and retained its responsibilities for funding for low-income schools, and distributing money for children with disabilities.

The White House said earlier on Thursday that the department will continue to manage federal student loans, but the order appears to say the opposite.

The department’s workforce has already been slashed in half, and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on US academic progress.

Much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money – both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programmes for colleges and school districts, like school meals and support for homeless students. The agency is also key in overseeing civil rights enforcement.

States and districts already control local schools, including the curriculum, but some conservatives have pushed to cut strings attached to federal money and provide it to states as “block grants” to be used at their discretion.

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Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.

“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson said.

Democrats said the order will be fought in the courts and in Congress.

The tone has changed totally. It’s a remarkable turnaround from the Oval Office meltdown to the perfect phone call.

President Trump is wholly transactional. His desire for give and take far outweighs any ideological instincts. He has no particular alignment to Ukraine or, for that matter, to Russia.

He just wants a deal. Peace would stop the killing as he has said repeatedly. It would also allow for deals which can benefit America: recouping the taxpayer money spent on Ukraine and reconnecting the American economy with Russia.

But trumping all that is his legacy and his image. He wants to be seen as the peacemaker president.

Since the Oval Office moment, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy seems now to have recognised all that.

Ukraine’s approach towards Trump has changed. Zelenskyy is now playing his game: transactionalism.

The minerals deal hasn’t dissolved. The indications I am getting is that it’s essentially been upgraded and broadened to a wider scope: fuller economic cooperation.

Zelenskyy needs to encourage America deep into his country economically. Has he bought into the idea that a US economic footprint amounts to a key part of a security guarantee?

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The old adage is: “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” That’s too true with President Trump.

Zelenskyy now feels like he’s at the table and I am told he doesn’t feel coerced.

The challenges remain huge though: he doesn’t trust Putin. That’s what he tried to tell President Trump in the Oval Office. The performance that day proved to him that Trump is inclined to trust Putin.

Zelenskyy must use transactionalism to draw an impatient Trump in.

President Trump is in a hurry for a deal. He’s inclined to accept wholly disingenuous commitments from Russia, or as one source put it to me: “Trump has a high tolerance for bullshit…”

That’s the jeopardy for Zelenskyy.