Trump rhetoric could foreshadow wider US strategy on Arctic resources: experts

US President Donald Trump's early-term rhetoric about Greenland and Canada and his focus on increasing Alaskan energy production could presage a larger, long-term US strategy to gain leverage over undeveloped oil and gas resources in the Arctic Circle, experts told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Since he was elected in November, Trump has threatened Canada with sweeping 25% tariffs (before delaying those tariffs for a month) and mused about making it the 51st state, publicly discussed a potential US acquisition of Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark, and issued a specific executive order directing agencies to do "unleash" Alaska's "energy potential" by rewriting restrictions on development and opening up federal lands to leases.

While those policies have been presented as discrete, they could also point to a more cohesive US strategy of securing and eventually developing oil and gas resources in the Arctic.

"I think there is a US strategic interest and plan to continue to defend and increasingly exert positive control over resource deposits and shipping lands in the region," Scott Modell, CEO of Rapidan Energy Group, said. "We have not seen evidence of a coordinated strategy yet out of the Trump White House -- just histrionics -- but the analytical and policy groundwork has already been laid."

Arctic potential

The second Trump administration was quick to promise new oil and gas projects in Alaska, vowing to expedite permitting and leasing and roll back restrictions on federal lands and waters imposed by previous US President Joe Biden. Industry interest in technically complex and politically fraught development in the state was limited even in the first Trump administration, but one project approved during the first Trump administration -- ConocoPhillips's Willow Project, on the North Slope of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an area estimated to contain 896 million barrels of oil by a 2008 US Geological Service survey -- was allowed to move forward under Biden.

"For more than 50 years, ConocoPhillips has been safely and reliably developing Alaska's oil resources," ConocoPhillips director of external affairs Rebecca Boys said in an email. "We appreciate the Trump administration's decision to harness America's energy potential by recognizing the strategic importance of resource development in Alaska. ... ConocoPhillips looks forward to continuing to responsibly explore and develop the NPR-A in the years ahead."

The Willow Project has become an example of wider US industry interest in long-term Alaskan development, particularly as other large US oilfields like the Bakken and Permian peak in the coming decades, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said.

"My answer to that would be: Look at Willow," Sommers said. "As some of these other basins become more mature, we know that there are a lot of resources in Alaska, and we expect there will be a lot of interest -- if there's durable energy policy."

A potential product of such policy could be the Alaska LNG Project. Trump's Alaska executive order claimed permitting for the $44 billion project to extract natural gas on the North Slope and pipe it to the Kenai Peninsula would be expedited under his administration.

"Having an LNG export facility in Alaska, on the West Coast, would be extremely strategic," Dr. Ellen Wald, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said.

That strategic interest could, in theory, extend to projects beyond current US territory. According to a 2019 analysis by Nordregio based largely on the 2008 USGS survey, hundreds of miles of Canada and Greenland's coasts are more than 50% likely to have greater than 50 million barrels of oil or LNG equivalent, in addition to proven areas in the North Slope, Beaufort Sea, and Canadian Arctic Archipelago -- areas that climate change and technological advances have made more accessible.

"Trump and his team are definitely interested in developing more energy, but there is a tension between the desire to do so at home -- including Alaska -- and efforts abroad," Rachel Ziemba, senior advisor at political risk consultancy Horizon Engage, said. "It's definitely no longer the time of friendshoring."

Strategy or talk

Historically, US security policy in the Arctic has primarily focused on detecting and tracking Russia nuclear missile threats that could reduce US warning time, Modell said. However, as the polar ice caps have melted and polar sea routes have become more navigable more of the year, "the focus has expanded to include thwarting Russian and Chinese exploitation and geographic land grabs above the Polar Circle," he said.

China, a relative newcomer in the Arctic, has been incorporating the region into its wider Belt and Road Initiative, Pavel Devyatkin, senior associate at the Arctic Institute, said. China has also expressed interest in Greeland's resources, including rare earth minerals, while Chinese research vessels and warships occasionally operate in the Arctic, though its presence is not much more advanced than the US.

"I think Trump's Greenland proposal is reminiscent of Nixon's 'madman strategy' -- designed to confuse opponents and push Denmark to make concessions in new agreements regarding Greenland's resources, defense structure, and other interests," Devyatkin said.

Understanding Trump's rhetoric as literal policy, or merely designed to create a wider possibility space for negotiations, remains a core analytical tension, Ward said.

"We're not annexing Canada, we're not annexing Greenland," Ward said. "This is not a serious thing, but everybody's talking about it, and underneath all this talk is that it shifts the conversation and the policy realm of what's considered acceptable."

Still, whether Trump's pressure on Canada and stated interest in Greenland are currently designed to merely extract smaller concessions, they could be the first related indicators of a broader, ongoing shift in the US's approach to the Arctic beyond security and deterrence.

"With technical advances in liquid and solid mineral extraction, the game is shifting again to monetizing Arctic resources," Modell said. "Many of the people running the Trump National Security Council are serious folks, and I expect Arctic policy to be more fully and completely articulated in months to come."