While both Russia and China have stepped up their Arctic policies by also continuing to build new icebreakers and ice-going vessels for both trade and naval services, the USA are confronted with a long-standing problem: an insufficient, old polar fleet and a slow path to create new vessels. A newly purchased ice-capable Arctic patrol vessel and help from abroad could ease the situation but the latter is facing a difficult political environment.
The United States is navigating a critical period in its polar strategy, confronting heightened geopolitical competition with an icebreaker fleet that is dangerously small and aged. The centerpiece of its modernization effort, the Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program, has been beset by profound difficulties, forcing a re-evaluation of the nation’s entire shipbuilding strategy. The program to build new medium – to – heavy icebreakers has seen the projected delivery of its first vessel, the future USCGC Polar Sentinel, slip by six years to 2030, while its estimated cost has ballooned from an initial figure of around $940 million to nearly $2.4 billion as of March 2025. These severe delays and cost overruns, attributed to persistent design challenges and a strained domestic industrial base, have created a significant capability gap at a time of increasing Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic.
As a direct consequence of the domestic program’s struggles, the U.S. Coast Guard has been forced into a stop-gap measure. In late 2024, it purchased a 2012-built commercial ice-capable vessel, the Aiviq, for $125 million. Renamed the USCGC Storis, the ship arrived in Seattle in July 2025 and is slated for its first Arctic patrol in the summer of 2026 after its commissioning. While the Storis provides a much-needed near-term presence, it is officially considered a “bridging strategy” and not a permanent solution, as it requires extensive modifications to meet full military operational standards.
The crisis in the domestic PSC program has prompted a pragmatic pivot toward foreign expertise. In April 2025, the Coast Guard issued a Request for Information for a new class of medium icebreakers, the Arctic Security Cutters (ASCs), explicitly soliciting input from the “global maritime industrial base” and stipulating an aggressive 36-month delivery timeline that few U.S. yards could meet. A leading contender has emerged in a Finnish-Canadian consortium, which proposes to build two ASCs by the end of 2028. The plan, led by Finland’s Rauma Marine Construction (RMC) and Canada’s Seaspan, would use a mature Canadian design and leverage RMC’s proven ability to construct such vessels quickly. The proposal reportedly includes provisions for transferring technology to allow subsequent ships to be built in the United States.
The competitive landscape further intensified in June 2025, when another Canadian shipbuilder, Davie, announced its plan to acquire shipyard assets in Texas. This move is explicitly aimed at positioning Davie to build icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard by creating a U.S. production hub, leveraging the expertise of its Finnish-owned Helsinki Shipyard and directly challenging other contenders.
This potential foreign-build is underpinned by a new diplomatic framework, the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact, a trilateral agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Finland announced in July 2024. The pact aims to facilitate the sharing of shipbuilding expertise to produce icebreakers “at speed and affordable cost”. However, the path is complicated by political crosscurrents, with President Donald Trump expressing both public skepticism about partnerships and private interest in direct negotiations with Finland for new and used icebreakers.
The most significant obstacle, however, is a self-inflicted policy contradiction. The U.S. administration’s pursuit of foreign-built icebreakers is on a collision course with its own protectionist trade policy. In 2025, the U.S. imposed tariffs of up to 50% on steel and aluminum imports, impacting key allies like Canada and Finland. These tariffs not only drive up the cost of the domestic PSC program but also make it nearly impossible for a foreign consortium to offer a viable fixed-price contract for the ASCs without a specific presidential waiver. The situation is further complicated by retaliatory tariffs from Canada and the European Union, creating a web of trade disputes that threatens to undermine the very security cooperation the ICE Pact is meant to foster. As the U.S. seeks to secure its interests in the polar regions, it must first resolve the conflict between its urgent strategic needs and its own economic policies.