US President Donald Trump and Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb will meet on Thursday at the White House to sign a pact for the US Coast Guard to buy up to four icebreaker ships from Finnish shipyards, the White House and Stubb said.
Trump and Stubb have established friendly ties since Trump regained power in January, and the two met in March at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and played a round of golf.
“I will sign a Memorandum of Understanding on icebreaker cooperation together with US President Donald Trump,” Stubb wrote in a post, adding that the agreement would lay the foundation for commercial deals between the US Coast Guard and Finnish companies.
Trump has consistently called for the United States to acquire as many as 40 new icebreakers to enhance US national security in the Arctic and counter the growing influence of China and Russia.
A White House official earlier said Trump would sign a memorandum of understanding with Finland to build four “Arctic security cutters” at shipyards in Finland, calling the plan a national security necessity to permit foreign construction.
“We will then leverage Finnish expertise to construct up to seven new ASCs in shipyards located in the United States,” the official said.
The 11 Arctic security cutters — new medium icebreakers to be used by the US Coast Guard — are expected to cost about $6.1 billion, the official said.
Three of the ships will be built by Davie in Galveston, Texas, and four by Bollinger Shipyards in Houma, Louisiana, the official added.
The aim is for the first icebreaker to be delivered by 2028. The official said the deals would result in billions of dollars of new investment in the US maritime industrial base and add thousands of skilled trades jobs for Americans.
The Coast Guard’s operational polar fleet currently includes only two operational Arctic security cutters, the official said.
Trump and Stubb are also expected to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump, after attempting to use his personal relationship to coax Russian President Vladimir Putin into a ceasefire, has said he is disappointed in Putin and now wants to help Ukraine more.
Finland is the world’s leading producer of icebreakers, with about 80 per cent of existing ships designed by its companies and about 60 per cent built at its shipyards, the Helsinki government said last year.
Finnish leaders have long advocated for icebreaker deals with the United States, but such attempts have previously been rebuffed by the Jones Act — US legislation that prioritises domestic businesses in the maritime industry.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Anne Kauranen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Heinrich)
