U.S. Arctic Foreign Policy in the Era of President Trump

U. S. Arctic Foreign Policy in the Era of President Trump: A Preliminary Assessment Page 2 by Joël Plouffe November, 2017 U. S. Arctic Foreign Policy in the Era of President Trump: A Preliminary Assessment Obama’s Arctic Legacy During the last eight years, the Obama administration gradually lifted the profile of the Arctic at both domestic and international levels, often taking the lead in Arctic [...] High-level attention In terms of foreign policy, the Arctic began to take a prominent role for the Obama administration in 2010 when former secretary of state Hillary Clinton attended the Arctic Ocean foreign ministers’ meeting in the margins of the G8 foreign ministers’ summit in Chelsea, Québec.3 At that meeting, she reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the Arctic Council, which Clinton U [...] Arctic diplomacy Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s decision in August 2017 to eliminate the position of U. S. special representative to the Arctic (formerly held by Commandant of the U. S. Coast Guard Admiral (ret.) Robert Papp) signals a shift in the way the Trump administration views its role in the region and U. S. national identity. [...] The “changes we see in the Arctic today now warrant taking the next step to heighten our diplomatic presence at the top of the globe with the appointment of a U. S. ambassador to the Arctic.”36 And, as recently as last March, while the Arctic representative position remained vacant, House Republican Jim Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin introduced a bipartisan bill to the House Committee on Foreign Aff [...] The Arctic Council Speaking on the U. S. Senate floor on May 25, Murkowski – who was a vocal critic of Obama’s Arctic strategy – concluded that the United States saw “a good outcome” from the two-year Obama-era Arctic Council chairmanship, and asked: “What’s next for the United States in the Arctic?” She suggested that Trump build on the former administration’s approach and achievements in Arctic