The Trump Administration and the Arctic Ocean

(To Giuseppe Morabito)
11/01/25

After Donald Trump's re-election, his campaign promise to quickly end the war between Russia and Ukraine appears increasingly complex as the situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate against Kiev and the Middle East remains a powder keg. After the talks of these hours it seems difficult to imagine that sending more weapons to Ukraine and imposing more sanctions on Russia could succeed in achieving peace.

Moscow's army continues its slow but steady inexorable advance and so President Putin may have decided that his country should seek a more complete Russian military victory and, in the short term, disregard any Western peace overtures.

However, experts speculate that the new Trump administration may have an opportunity to break with the status quo and convince Russia to end the war.

This should include developments that were unexpected so far regarding the Arctic Ocean issue, an issue that will surely be brought to the attention of the Russian president at a desirable negotiating table. This situation could also be of interest to the Trump administration.

Putin attends November ceremony to launch new nuclear icebreaker Chukotka (photo below) has attracted little attention in NATO countries, but has demonstrated Moscow's attention to the strategic situation in the Arctic regionThe ship appears to be the largest and most powerful icebreaker in the world, measuring 173 metres in length and displacing 33.500 tonnes, and is equipped with two nuclear reactors that provide 350 megawatts of power, allowing it to break through ice up to 3 metres thick.

Such ships are not cheap and the Chukotka It has a price tag of around half a billion dollars.

La Chukotka It is the fourth in a series of nuclear icebreakers, with another of the same class, the Yakutia, also nearing completion and a new keel due to be launched in 2025. In October, an even more ambitious class of nuclear icebreakers received the green light for production at a shipyard near Vladivostok, at a cost of $XNUMX billion, a significant sum given Russia’s current, supposedly suboptimal economic situation.

The destination of the icebreakers is towards the Northern Sea Route (NSR - North Sea Route), a sea route that runs north of Russia and connects northwestern Europe to Asia-Pacific. This year, several new records were set in the NSR, including the largest container ship ever, which passed through the NSR in September, and the largest amount of oil ever transported.

For the Russian government, which is supposed to have some political and economic problems, the Arctic is always at the top of the agenda because it comprises about 10% of Russia's GDP and 20% of its exports. Russian analysts aim to multiply Russian resource exports to the NSR six or seven times, to 200 million tons in the next five years. A mid-2024 report also suggests that Russia certainly has the resources to fuel this huge export expansion.

Furthermore, the Kremlin’s Arctic ambitions go far beyond oil and gas. As all Russian leaders know, the country’s economic growth has always been hampered by the simple fact that most of Russia’s giant rivers, such as the Ob, Yenisei, and Lena, all flow north into the Arctic. Thus, a functional NSR that allows for year-round navigation logically holds the key to unlocking major development in the country’s vast and rich interior and Siberia more generally. Putin is well aware that building tanks and missiles alone will not make Russia strong and prosperous in the future, but this mega-project could open up that possibility.

The People's Republic of China has also embraced the NSR through its "Polar Silk Road" and sought to cooperate closely with the Kremlin in the Arctic. A 2024 Chinese document argued that Beijing should ensure that Chinese and Russian companies investing in the Arctic transit corridor have at least a profitable outcome.. The governments in Moscow and Beijing are aware that the Arctic passage is unlikely to reach its full potential without Western support. At this point - and from many quarters - it is argued that even focusing on the Arctic will probably have the effect of stopping the war in Ukraine. The long-sought sea route through the Far North remains one of the few relatively concrete geo-economic issues that the Kremlin favors as much as the future of Ukraine itself.

Crucially, a newly developed dynamic transport corridor would allocate a certain percentage of the vast profits over the next five decades to rebuilding Ukraine’s destroyed infrastructure. This steady flow of resources could perhaps be seen as a form of reparations payment to Kiev, which would likely amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.

Undoubtedly, the PRC would strongly support this plan but a number of other interested countries, (Canada, Finland, Norway and Sweden to the West, or South Korea and Japan to the East), could also benefit from the NSR, with the potential to ease global tensions across Eurasia… PRC permitting!

Some regions of the United States could also benefit economically, including Alaska, of course, but also northern ports like Seattle and Boston. Western countries at the table for NSR, too, would likely mean more compelling environmental standards.

For this agreement to have significant results, the United States would still have to lift the sanctions applied to the NSR projects. Trump's statement in recent days on the possible American occupation of Greenland appears only as a propaganda provocation.

During the previous Trump administration, the president made some major foreign policy moves and took some political risks to achieve peace. To be sure, the difficult issues of citizens’ rights in eastern Ukraine and the yet-to-be-defined security architecture for Eastern Europe will remain paramount in any deal. However, Ukraine peace negotiations with a substantial Arctic component could win Trump’s favor and succeed. Trump’s embrace of this large-scale trade deal could not only help restore peace in Eastern Europe, but could also revitalize the continent’s prospects overall.

The Arctic region, it is known for sure, is rich in raw materials and energy resources and, if it were to become completely free and passable through the ice all year round, it would allow the opening of some sea routes that are decidedly more advantageous and shorter than the Atlantic or Mediterranean routes. This is especially following the current crisis in the Red Sea, the consequent possible decline of the Suez Canal and the ever-increasing limits of the Panama Canal (which President Trump has threatened to occupy by force). and this could be something more than a provocation). In particular, many transport ships from the People's Republic of China, and not only, bound for Europe, currently prefer to circumnavigate the African continent, thus significantly lengthening transport cycle times and fuel costs.

In conclusion, given that the “Arctic route” represents a significant challenge for the “Arctic countries” from a commercial, geopolitical and environmental point of view, it is instead a potential threat for Italy, whose major ports would be cut off from the main routes traveled by world traffic. It is difficult to imagine that the vast majority of container ships would decide to enter the Mediterranean from the Strait of Gibraltar in the direction of Trieste or Genoa. It seems easier and more profitable to cross the English Channel and head to the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg to unload goods bound for Europe.

Photo: US Army / Kremlin / web / China MoD