Sullivan Welcomes U.S.–Finland Partnership to Close America’s Icebreaker Gap

WASHINGTON-U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) today applauded the announcement of a new agreement between the United States and Finland to build up to four advanced polar icebreakers. The $6.1 billion agreement will mark a significant expansion of U.S. icebreaking capacity as Russia and China continue to expand their military and commercial presence in the Arctic.

This partnership reinforces the trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact between Finland, the United States, and Canada, allowing all three nations to significantly accelerate icebreaker development and production through shared expertise and resources in support of America's Arctic security. This builds on years of work by Senator Sullivan to revitalize America's polar security capabilities. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee overseeing the Coast Guard, Sen. Sullivan was instrumental in securing nearly $25 billion in historic Coast Guard investments through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That package included$300 millionforshoreside infrastructure to homeport the USCGC Storis-the first new icebreaker in a generation-in Juneau, Alaska.

"If any state in the country knows one of our national security challenges, it's this and it's us: We have an icebreaker gap," said Sen. Sullivan in a video released today. "Right now, we have two icebreakers-one is broken-and the Russians have 54, many of which are nuclear-powered, and weaponized. But here's the really good news: We are closing the icebreaker gap in a whole bunch of ways. Just in August, we were in Juneau to commission the Coast Guard icebreaker Storis. It was a great ceremony. I'd been working on that for ten years. The budget reconciliation bill has $300 million in shoreside infrastructure just for Juneau to homeport that icebreaker. Then, that bill also has the biggest build-up in the Coast Guard's history for icebreakers, cutters, helicopters. I chair the Senate Commerce subcommittee in charge of the Coast Guard. We're going to have at least 16 new icebreakers because of that bill-three are what they call 'medium' security icebreakers. Guess where I'm going to work my tail off to get them homeported? In our great state!

"Finally, yesterday, President Trump and the president of Finland announced more progress on this ICE Pact. $6.1 billion and having the Finns help us build and purchase icebreakers for us, hopefully for Alaska. I've talked to the President. I've talked to the president of Finland about this. President Trump's been on this icebreaker gap way since his first term. This is real progress. The one state that's going to benefit better than anyone is us."

# # #