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Thank You ambassador I know you're
enjoying your time here tremendously and
you are doing an outstanding job it's
great to look at her and see so many
friends - who would have thought I could
come this far north and know this many
people it's it is heartening to me I
mean I grew up in Southern California
about 4 minutes from Disneyland which
claims to be the happiest place on earth
by trademark so you know you'll have
some work to do here get the trademark
thanks for being here
thanks especially to foreign ministers
joining for mr. Stetson Mickelson
administer bagger I also understand we
have mayor lot Vernon here and lots of
city leaders from this special place I'm
looking forward to my stay here thanks
for your hospitality - I'm touched by
your warm welcome this is only the
second time I've had the opportunity to
visit Finland but I really do feel as I
said earlier that I among friends
you know the Finnish people have a
tradition of hospitality for visiting
Americans I love the story of Eleanor
Roosevelt and her visit to this city in
1950 to check on your post-war
reconstruction progress it was short
notice and the Finns wanted to place a
special I had to pay special place for
her arrival so they had an architect
design a cabin overnight and mobilized
their best construction crew to build
that place her plane touched down just
as the outer door was being fitted in
the townspeople were ushered in and
grand welcome Lisa Marie and that cabin
still stands today so as you could say
we've been friends for an awfully long
time in Finland in the US you have a
pair of Nations they're celebrating our
100th year of diplomatic relations we
have a lot to look back on but also a
great deal to look forward to and I want
to speak today about our future not just
about our bilateral future but about our
future in this region here in the Arctic
and what better place to do it for me
have the opportunity to participate in
the Artie Council it's an honor to
gather here this week with fellow
members the seven other nations in
addition to United States and the proud
indigenous people I'm not the first
Secretary of State in recent memory to
participate in the early council
proceedings and you can be sure that I
will not be the last
I might have her be the first to give a
major address outside of those formal
proceedings and I wanted to do so
because the importance of what I came
here for transcends any one form the
world has a long felled magnetic pole
towards the Arctic but never more so
than today for reasons I'll explain in a
moment the region has become an arena
for power and for competition and the
eight Arctic states must adapt to this
new future in its first two decades the
Arctic Council has had the luxury of
focusing almost exclusively on
scientific collaboration on cultural
matters on environmental research all
important themes very important and we
should continue to do those but no
longer do we have that luxury of the
next hundred years we're entering a new
age of strategic engagement in the
Arctic complete with new threats to the
Arctic and it's real estate and to all
of our interests in that region before
we sit down for tomorrow's formal
council meetings I want to give a voice
to a sense of what's at stake and what I
think we can do together about it let's
start with the most fundamental
principle the United States is an Arctic
nation but even before the purchase of
Alaska our interest here stretched back
centuries indigenous peoples have lived
in the Arctic for generations well
before there was an America to speak of
in the 1730's winters from excuse me
whalers from new england traveled the
Davis Strait between Canada and
Greenland in the eighteen hundreds our
polar explorers were celebrities the
funeral procession for one of them
Alecia Kent Kane was said to be the
second largest of the century bested
only by the Lincoln's Alaska was
purchased by the United States in 1857
and the deal was over was completed by
the Secretary of State William Seward
after he retired Seward wasted
scuse me seward was asked what's the
greatest contribution he made during his
long and very distinguished career he
had to quiver he had to pause for just
one moment to say that the purchase of
Alaska was my most important undertaking
but it will take a the country a
generation to truly appreciate that now
here we are multiple generations later
this is our time to appreciate it like
never before this is America's moment to
stand up as an Arctic nation and for the
Arctic future because far from the
barrier barren backcountry that many
thought it to be in Seward's time the
Arctic is at the forefront of
opportunity and abundance it houses 13%
of the world's undiscovered oil 30% of
its undiscovered gas and an abundance of
uranium rare earth minerals gold
diamonds and millions of square miles of
untapped resources fisheries galore and
it's centerpiece the Arctic Ocean is
rapidly taking on new strategic
significance offshore resources which
are helping their respective coastal
states are the subject of renewed
competition steady reductions in sea ice
are opening new passageways and new
opportunities for trade this could
potentially slash the time it takes to
travel between Asia and the west by as
much as 20 days Arctic sea lanes could
come before that could come the 24th
century Suez in Panama canal's
and that leads me to my second point the
second point is this to leverage the
Arctic's the Arctic continental all
nations including non RT nations should
have a right to engage peacefully in
this region the United States is a
believer in free markets we know from
experience
the free and fair competition open by
the rule of law produces the best
outcomes but all the parties in the
marketplace have to play by those same
rules those who violate those rules
should lose their rights to participate
in that marketplace respect and
transparency are the price of admission
and let's talk about China for a moment
China has observer status in the Arctic
Council but that status is contingent
upon its respect for the sovereign
rights of Arctic states the US wants
China to meet that condition and
contribute responsibly in the region but
China's words and actions raise doubts
about its intentions Beijing claims to
be a near Arctic state yet the shortest
distance between China in the Arctic is
900 miles there are only Arctic States
and not Arctic States no third category
exists and claiming otherwise entitles
China to exactly nothing thus not to say
Chinese investment is unwelcome indeed
quite the opposite the United States and
Arctic nations welcomed transparent
Chinese investments that reflect
economic interest and national security
ambitions between 2012 and 2017 China
invested the Arctic nearly 90 billion
dollars it's planning to build
infrastructure from Canada to the
Northwest Territories to Siberia and
just last month Russia announced plans
to connect the northern sea route with
China's maritime Silk Road which would
develop a new shipping channel from Asia
to Northern Europe meanwhile China is
already developing shipping lanes in the
Arctic Ocean this is part of a very
familiar pattern Beijing attempts to
develop critical infrastructure using
Chinese money Chinese companies and
Chinese workers in some cases to
establish a permanent Chinese security
presence our Pentagon warned just last
week the China could use its civilian
research presence in the Arctic to
strengthen its military presence
including our deployment of submarines
including deployment of submarines to
the region as a deterrent against
nuclear attack we need to examine these
activities closely and we need and we
keep the experience we have learned of
other nations in mind
China's pattern of aggressive behavior
elsewhere in that excuse me aggressive
behavior elsewhere should inform what we
do and how it might treat the Arctic
let's just ask ourselves do we want
Arctic nations broadly or indigenous
communities specifically to go the way
a former government in Sri Lanka or
Malaysia and stared by debt and
corruption do we want crucial Arctic
infrastructure to end up like Chinese
constructed roads in Ethiopia crumbling
and dangerous after only a few years do
we want the Arctic Ocean to transform
into a new South China Sea fraught with
militarization and competing territorial
claims do we want the fragile Arctic
environment exposed to the same
ecological devastation caused by China's
fishing fleet in the seas off its coast
or unregulated industry activity in its
own country I think the answers are
pretty clear then there's Russia as a
fellow Arctic Council member Russia the
other Arctic states have fruitfully
cooperated in a number of areas
expansive conservation efforts those are
to be applauded we want cooperation to
continue but we can't have one side
cooperate and the other side derogate
its duties we're concerned about
Russia's claim over the international
waters of the northern sea route
including its newly announced plans to
connect it with China's maritime Silk
Route in the northern sea route Moscow
already illegally demands other nations
request permission to pass requires
Russian maritime pilots to be aboard
foreign ships and threatens to use
military force to sink any that failed
to comply with their demands
these propagate provocative actions are
part of a pattern of aggressive Russian
behavior here in the Arctic Russia is
already leaving snow prints in the form
of army boots Russia formally announced
its intent to increase its military
presence in the region in 2014 when it
reopened a cold war Arctic military base
since then thanks in part to its large
icebreaker fleet Russia has been able to
renovate old bases and infrastructure it
claims to have built 475 new military
sites including bases north of the
Arctic Circle as well as 16 new
deepwater ports it secures this
president through sophisticated new air
defense systems
any ship missiles no one denies Russia
has significant Arctic interests we
recognize that Russia is not the only
nation making illegitimate claims the US
has a long contested feud with Canada
over sovereign claims through the
Northwest Passage but Russia is unique
its actions deserve special attention
special attention of this council in
part because of their sheer scale but
also because we know Russian territorial
ambitions can turn violent 13,000 people
have been killed due to Russia's ongoing
aggressive action in Ukraine and just
because the Arctic is a place of
wilderness does not mean it should
become a place of lawlessness it need
not be the case and we stand ready to
ensure that it has not become so as I
said in a speech in Chile in Santiago
just a few weeks ago American leadership
stands in stark contrast with the
Chinese and Russian models when the u.s.
chaired this council we made strides to
improve suicide prevention among
indigenous youth and funded new
sanitation capacity in rural villages
American commitment to the region has
been bipartisan spanning multiple
administration's the Trump
administration however recognized that
America could do more and we will we
intend to today America is sharing its
focus on the Arctic and securing its
future under President Trump or
fortifying America's security and
diplomatic presence in the area on the
security side partly in response to
Russia's destabilizing activities we are
hosting military exercises strengthen
our force presence rebuilding our ice
breaker breaker fleet expanding
coastguard funding and creating a new
senior military post post for Arctic
Affairs inside of our own military we're
also leveraging the important
partnerships that we will expand on even
this week
NATO's Trident structure exercise last
fall was the largest Arctic military
exercise since the Cold War with over
50,000 persons participating on the
diplomatic side two were fully engaged
we're working to strengthen our presence
across the entire region enhance our
engagement with each of our Arctic part
I'll have more to announce on that at a
later stop on this trip in addition to
security president Trump is committed to
leveraging resources of environmentally
in environmentally responsible ways he
knows this white expanse can also be
green
our administration helped Arctic States
sealed the central Arctic fishery
agreement it was one of the first times
in history that a region band together
to preemptively solve a threat to
environmental resources we should all be
very proud of that our administration
has also freed up energy exploration in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
we've exported offshore energy
production in the safest way possible
while also hosting excuse me also
hosting joint oil spill exercises with
regional partners and a pleased to
announce today that the US Secretary of
Energy Rick Perry will deliver the
keynote address at the Arctic Circle
assembly later this year in Iceland
he'll also talk more there about how we
plan to increase access to the Arctic's
resources and do so an environmentally
responsible way but the facts speak for
themselves America is the world's leader
in caring for the environment
our energy related co2 emissions fell by
14 percent between 2006 in 2017 the rest
of the world rose by more than 20
percent during that same time period our
black carbon emissions are down 16
percent since 2013 and are on track to
drop by nearly half by 2035 the best of
any Arctic country meanwhile it isn't
clear that Russia is reducing emissions
at all despite being the largest emitter
of black carbon in the entire Arctic the
United States is achieving our
reductions the American Way through
scientific work through technology
through building out safe and secure
energy infrastructure and through our
economic growth and doing it doing it in
a way that does the Stifel development
with burdensome regulations that only
create more risk to the environment
compare the data of the United States to
China
it's our co2 emissions more than tripled
between excuse me China co2 emissions
triple
between 2000 and 2016 do we want that
kind of output in one of the most
precious and pristine quarters of the
world I want to close by talking about
two principles that have long defined
the Arctic and two which are needed in
the new era more than ever
that's partnerships and courage they're
common the common threads through the
centuries here in the Arctic indigenous
people carved civilizations into the ice
explorers drudged onward in the face of
danger and death and soldiers and
diplomats secured the region when it
mattered the most and sometimes
sometimes courage and partners come from
unlikely places like a bar in Duluth
Minnesota the year was 1955 and still at
times there were no human being that was
believed to have reached the North Pole
by sea or land he didn't that bar on the
shores of Lake Superior an insurance
salesman and the doctor both middle-aged
dads and living in the suburbs decided
to give it a shot
they recruited a high school geography
teacher and a mechanic and they also
sought a Canadian partner someone more
familiar with the North Country setting
on a Canadian snow plow they snowplow
settling on a Canadian snow plow racer
eventually the motley crew set out on
what became a forty three day four
hundred twelve mile trek in temperatures
reaching negative 60 degrees all on the
backs of snowmobiles they easily could
have died like so many before them
instead in 1968 they became the first
human beings ever to reach the North
Pole by land just 15 months before Neil
Armstrong made his historic first step
on the moon courage and partnership
courage and partnership is what this
region depends on especially today so
for here at the RT council we've done
our job there's more to do we face a new
era of challenge in the region now is
the time for increased vigilance and
increased partnership and even more
courage we must hold each other
accountable and we must not allow this
for
to fall victim to subversion from Arctic
or non Arctic States through courage and
partnership we can succeed I trust that
we will and our nations and the entire
world can look forward to a bright
peaceful sustainable future for this
indispensable region thank you all for
joining me here today
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