PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull believes US President Barack Obama could have benefited from a subscription to the NT News to stay up to speed on the lease of Darwin’s port to a Chinese-owned company.

Mr Turnbull said the deal was no secret and had been the subject of a number of inquiries, and was widely reported.

In talks in the Philippines, the president said the first the US heard of the deal was in The New York Times, to which Mr Turnbull joked that Mr Obama needed to subscribe to the NT News instead.

The Northern Territory government granted Chinese-owned company Landbridge a 99-year lease on the port in a deal worth $506 million.

Defence raised no security concerns but the US says it should have been consulted.

Mr Turnbull said the issue was first raised with him some weeks ago by US officials who said the first they knew of the deal was reading about it in the news.

“Seeking to encourage the circulation of great Australian newspapers, I suggested they should invest in a subscription to the Northern Territory News because it was not a secret,” he told reporters in Manila where he is attending the APEC summit.

Mr Turnbull said it was important to support metropolitan newspapers right around Australia and especially in Darwin.

“You can keep up to speed,” he said, adding that he and President Obama discussed the importance of subscribing to the NT News.

Mr Turnbull said the president recalled with affection his own appearance on the NT News front page which suggested he needed crocodile insurance for his visit to the Top End.

“I did say to him even the US president would struggle to get onto the front page of the NT News without a crocodile angle,” the prime minister said.