San Francisco Frontiers - Finland building icebreakers for US amid Arctic tensions

Sixty percent of the world's icebreakers are Finnish-made and 80 percent are designed by Finnish companies, according to Arctia, the state-owned firm which manages the country's icebreaker fleet.

Jukka Viitanen, Sustainability and Communications Director of Arctia, told AFP that Finland's expertise was born from necessity.

It is the only country in the world where all ports can freeze in winter, Viitanen said.

"We need to export and import stuff to be able to maintain people living in this country. That is why we need icebreaking," he said.

Nations such as China, Russia and the United States are scrambling to secure a foothold in the Arctic for strategic reasons and to access huge reserves of natural resources.

Many are now looking to enhance their icebreaker fleet.

In October, Trump and Helsinki announced that the United States coast guard will procure 11 icebreakers.

The US coast guard currently operates three ageing vessels.

Four vessels will be built in Finnish shipyards, and the remaining seven in the United States.

"It is not possible to sail through the Arctic Sea without icebreakers and many big nations have interests in the Arctic right now," Viitanen said.

- US threats -

The US order -- estimated at $6.1 billion according to media reports -- is a welcome boost for Finland, where unemployment is at a record high and the economy is in the doldrums.

But Trump's desire to acquire strategically-located Greenland has now raised "more and more" suspicions about the deal, Sanna Kopra, an Arctic geopolitics and security professor at the University of Lapland, told AFP.

Trump's long-standing territorial designs on Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, have triggered the most serious crisis in the history of US-led military alliance NATO.

The US president last week backed off threats of using force to seize Greenland and began talks with Copenhagen and Nuuk.

"But if Trump changes his mind about taking control over Greenland and the politics of the United States turns increasingly imperialistic, of course it raises questions about how wise it is to proceed," Kopra said.

If Trump again starts talking about seizing Greenland, "the question of cancelling these deals could become a very important political issue," Kopra noted.

Charly Salonius-Pasternak, an expert in geopolitics and the CEO of Finnish think-tank Nordic West Office, meanwhile doubted Trump's threats would endanger the deal.

"There are voices," against it, he said, adding: "Are these people influential in the matter? No."

- 'Greenland saga not over' -

But Salonius-Pasternak conceded "the Greenland saga" was not over.

"Trump said at the end of October 2025 that there were no plans to use military force in Venezuela," he noted -- but US forces seized its president in a raid there on January 3.

In December, Finland's Rauma shipyard confirmed a contract from the US coast guard to build two icebreakers, to be completed in 2028.

The Helsinki shipyard, owned by Canadian company Davie, is also expecting an order.

Managing director Kim Salmi told AFP they expected to sign a contract with the US coast guard for two icebreakers shortly.

"I'm preparing to start building those icebreakers as soon as possible," Salmi said.

"When the ink drops on the paper, the first US icebreaker will be delivered 26 months from that," he said with a smile.

M.Gonzalez--SFF