{"id":2767,"date":"2025-03-06T00:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T22:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2025-03-14T06:44:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T04:44:37","slug":"growing-trump-putin-detente-could-spell-trouble-for-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/2025\/03\/06\/growing-trump-putin-detente-could-spell-trouble-for-the-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Trump-Putin detente could spell trouble for the\u00a0Arctic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During a wide-ranging 90-minute speech<\/a> to the US congress of March 4, Donald Trump revisited his determination to \u201cget\u201d Greenland \u201cone way or the other\u201d. Trump said his country needed Greenland \u201cfor national security\u201d. While he said he and his government \u201cstrongly support your right to determine your own future\u201d he added that \u201cif you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s ambitions regarding Greenland and its considerable mineral wealth are just one of a raft of issues in the first six weeks of his second term that have plunged European global politics into disarray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the White House ramps up the pressure<\/a> on Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to allow the US access to Ukraine\u2019s mineral wealth, the US president is also talking about \u201ccutting a deal\u201d<\/a> with Russian president Vladimir Putin. That deal would not only mean territorial losses for Kyiv, but would prepare the ground for a potentially far-reaching economic partnership<\/a> between the White House and the Kremlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, Trump and Putin are primarily focused on Ukrainian territory and mineral assets. But discussions have also begun on where else \u201cdeals\u201d might be made, including in the Arctic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A carve up of the Arctic is an attractive proposition for the two countries given the importance both leaders attach to mineral resource wealth. As in the case of Ukraine, such an approach would reflect Trump\u2019s predisposition for transactional geopolitics at the expense of multilateral approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Arctic, any deal would effectively end the principle of \u201ccircumpolar cooperation\u201d<\/a>. This has, since the end of the cold war, upheld the regional primacy of the eight Arctic states (A8) that have cooperated to solve common challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A weekly email for Europeans by European scholars<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Since the Arctic Council<\/a> was established in 1996, the A8 has worked on issues of environmental protection, sustainable development, human security and scientific collaboration. That harmony has been crucial in an era in which climate change is causing the rapid melting of Arctic ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the Arctic Council played an instrumental role in negotiating several legally binding treaties<\/a>. These include agreements on search and rescue (2011), marine oil pollution preparedness (2013) and scientific cooperation (2017). It also supported the Central Arctic Ocean fisheries agreement<\/a> (CAO) signed in 2018 by the Arctic Ocean states with Iceland, the EU, China, Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arctic Council \u2013 and more broadly, circumpolar cooperation \u2013 withstood the geopolitical aftershocks of Russia\u2019s seizure of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2015. But Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine left trust teetering on the precipice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a month, European and North American members had pressed pause on regular meetings of the Arctic Council and its scientific working groups, isolating Moscow. Some activity eventually resumed<\/a> at the working group level in virtual formats, but full engagement with Russia has remained conditional on a military withdrawal from Ukraine. Meanwhile, hefty sanctions were imposed by the US and Europe, including targeting Russian Arctic energy projects<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2019s response was to enhance its relationships with others. Countries such as Brazil, India, Turkey and Saudi Arabia now work with Russia in the Arctic on commercial and scientific projects<\/a>. This pivot raised concerns among Nato allies about a stronger and challenging Russia-China presence across the Arctic. But the second Trump administration has changed the calculus. There\u2019s now the threat of a new Arctic order based on the primacy \u2013 not of the A8 \u2013 but on a reset of US-Russia relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change of focus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s signing of an executive order on February 4<\/a> to determine whether to withdraw support from international institutions may lead the White House to conclude there is no place for the Arctic Council. Its longstanding focus on climate change and environmental protection is anathema to the Trump administration, which has already withdrawn from the Paris agreement and is destroying domestic climate-related science programmes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Map<\/a>
Climate change is bringing increased competition for access to valuable resources. Peter Hermes Furian\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The longstanding commitment of the A8 to circumpolar cooperation, or even a narrow A5<\/a> (Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US) view of the primacy of the Arctic Ocean coastal states, is likely to be dismissed by the White House, which favours the embrace of great power politics. While many have warned<\/a> that the Arctic Council can\u2019t survive without Russia, losing US interest and support would surely be its death knell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this landscape of \u201cAmerica first\u201d, the prospect of Washington and Moscow dividing the Arctic and its resources seems increasingly realistic. In such a situation, the international treaties signed by the A8, and the CAO may also be at risk. Denmark may find itself excluded altogether from Arctic affairs if Trump gets his way over Greenland<\/a>. At any rate, all the Nordic Arctic states are likely to struggle to make their voices in the region heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key question for European Nato and EU members is whether Trump would worry about Russian dominance in the European Arctic if it brought US-Russia economic cooperation to extract the region\u2019s wealth? Might Trump even be supportive of Russian attempts<\/a> to revisit the terms of the 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty<\/a>, which ultimately gave Norway<\/a> sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago (albeit with some limitations<\/a>), if that too meant jointly unlocking Svalbard\u2019s mineral resources<\/a> let alone the wealth of the Arctic seabed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What room, if any, would a deal leave for Indigenous people to be heard, or for international scientific collaboration on critical challenges related to climate and biodiversity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we have learned anything in the tumult of recent weeks, it is that European countries, individually and collectively, struggle to exercise strategic influence over contemporary geopolitical events. If Trump and Putin do begin negotiations over the Arctic, Europe may simply have to accept the end of the Arctic Council and circumpolar cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate science, environmental protection, sustainable development and the ability of Indigenous people to decide their future would all suffer. The UK and Europe meanwhile will be left to consider what, if anything, can be done to defend Arctic interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump\u2019s ambitions regarding Greenland and its considerable mineral wealth are just one of a raft of issues in the first six weeks of his second term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cooperation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}