SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you, Ambassador.
I know you’re enjoying your time here tremendously,
and you are doing an outstanding job.
It’s great to look out here and see so many
friends, too.
Who’d have thought I could come this far
north and know this many people?
It is heartening to me.
I grew up in southern California about four
minutes from Disneyland, which claims to be
the happiest place on Earth by trademark,
so you all have some work to do here.
Get the trademark.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks especially to Foreign Minister Soini,
Foreign Minister Thordarson, Michelson, and
Minister Bagger.
I also understand we have Mayor Lotvonen here,
and lots of city leaders from this special
place.
I’m looking forward to my stay here.
Thanks for your hospitality, too.
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’m among
friends.
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 postwar reconstruction progress.
It was short notice, and the Finns wanted
to place a special – had a special place
for her arrival.
So they had an architect design a cabin overnight
and mobilize 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
welcoming ceremony, and that cabin still stands
today.
So as you can see, we’ve been friends for
an awfully long time.
In Finland and the U.S., you have a pair of
nations that are 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 to
have the opportunity to participate in the
Arctic Council?
It’s an honor to gather here this week with
fellow members, the seven other nations in
addition to the United States and the proud
indigenous people.
I’m not the first secretary of state in
recent memory to participate in the Arctic
Council proceedings, and you can be sure that
I will not be the last.
I might, however, 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
forum.
The world has long felt magnetic pull 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 its 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 1730s, winters from – or excuse me,
whalers from New England traveled the Davis
Strait between Canada and Greenland.
In the 1800s, our polar explorers were celebrities.
The funeral procession for one of them, Elisha
Kent Kane, was said to be the second largest
of the century, bested only by the Lincolns.
Alaska was purchased by the United States
in 1857, and the deal was over – was completed
by Secretary of State William Seward.
After he retired, Seward wasted – excuse
me, Seward was asked, what’s the greatest
contribution he made during his long and very
distinguished career.
He had to pause for just one moment to say
that the purchase of Alaska was my most important
undertaking, but it will take 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’s future.
Because far from the 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 percent of the world’s undiscovered
oil, 30 percent 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 its centerpiece, the Arctic Ocean, is
rapidly taking on new strategic significance.
Offshore resources, which are helping the
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 – could
come the 21s century Suez and Panama Canals.
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-Arctic nations, should
have a right to engage peacefully in this
region.
The United States is a believer in free markets.
We know from experience that 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 U.S. 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 and
the Arctic is 900 miles.
There are only Arctic States and Non-Arctic
States.
No third category exists, and claiming otherwise
entitles China to exactly nothing.
That’s not to say Chinese investment is
unwelcome – indeed, quite the opposite.
The United States and Arctic nations welcome
transparent Chinese investments that reflect
economic interest and national security ambitions.
Between 2012 and 2017, China invested in the
Arctic nearly $90 billion.
It’s planning to build infrastructure from
Canada, to the Northwest Territories, to Siberia.
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 that 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 the – 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 of former government
in Sri Lanka or Malaysia, ensnared 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 industrial 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
Road.
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 fail
to comply with their demands.
These 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 re-opened 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 deep-water ports.
It secures this presence through sophisticated
new air defense systems and anti-ship missiles.
No one denies Russia has significant Arctic
interests.
We recognize that Russia is not the only nation
making illegitimate claims.
The U.S. 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 Artic 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 does
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 administrations.
The Trump administration, however, recognizes
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, we are 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, strengthening
our force presence, rebuilding our icebreaker
fleet, expanding Coast Guard funding, and
creating a new senior military post for Arctic
Affairs inside of our own military.
And 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 too, we’re fully
engaged.
We’re working to strengthen our presence
across the entire region and enhance our engagement
with each of our Arctic partners.
I’ll have more to announce on that on 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 the Arctic states
seal the Central Arctic Fisheries Agreement.
It was one of the first times in history that
a region banded 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 I’m pleased to announce today that U.S.
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 in an environmentally
responsible way.
Look, 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 and 2017.
The rest of the world’s 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 in a way
that doesn’t stifle development with burdensome
regulations that only create more risk to
the environment.
Compare the data of the United States to China.
Its – our CO2 emissions more than tripled
between – excuse me, China’s CO2 emissions
tripled between 2000 and 2016.
Do we want that kind of output in one of the
most precious and pristine corners of the
world?
I want to close by talking about two principles
that have long defined the Arctic – and
which are needed in this new era more than
ever: That’s partnerships and courage.
They’re common – they’re common threads
through the centuries here in the Arctic:
Indigenous peoples carved civilizations into
the ice, explorers trudged 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
came 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.
Yet in that bar on the shores of Lake Superior,
an insurance salesman and a 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, settling
on a Canadian snowplow, they snowplow – settling
on a Canadian snowplow racer.
Eventually, the motley crew set out on what
became a 43-day, 412-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 Arctic 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 forum 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.
(Applause.)
