The Coast Guard Cutter Storis floats near the Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, Aug. 5, 2025. (Ashly Murphy/U.S. Coast Guard)
President Donald Trump authorized construction of four Arctic security cutters for the Coast Guard to be built in Finland rather than domestically because of “urgent national security needs” in the polar region, according to the White House.
The vessels would be the first of the Coast Guard’s new class of medium-size icebreakers.
Expertise gained from construction of this first batch of cutters in Finland will be leveraged to build up to seven more at American shipyards, according to a Thursday news release.
Construction will be done on an “accelerated schedule,” the release states.
The Trump administration directed the Coast Guard to “submit a plan for phasing ASC construction in a manner that promotes the on-shoring of expertise to build follow-on ASCs domestically.”
The choice of building ships in Finland is a departure from Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, which aims to boost domestic manufacturing.
A 2023 Coast Guard fleet analysis concluded that the service needed eight to nine polar icebreakers to perform its missions in the Arctic and Antarctic in coming years.
The service has three icebreakers, with only two — Storis and Healy — in the Arctic.
The half-century-old Polar Star is primarily used in the Antarctic.
As Arctic ice continues to recede due to global climate change, military and economic competition in the region has grown among the U.S., Russia and China.
The region is believed to possess massive stores of natural resources.
Louisiana-based Bollinger Shipyards was selected to design and build six Arctic cutters in partnership with Seaspan Shipyards in Vancouver, British Canada, and two Finland-based firms, Rauma Marine Constructions and Aker Arctic Technology Inc., according to a Bollinger news release Thursday.
“The Arctic Security Cutter will enable the United States to rapidly project American power, enforce our sovereignty and reassert American dominance in the Arctic,” Ben Bordelon, president and CEO of Bollinger, said in the release.
Bollinger said that construction will begin immediately in both Finland and the U.S., with full production eventually transitioning to America.
“The first three vessels will be built simultaneously by Rauma in Finland and Bollinger in the United States, with production of the remaining three vessels to be built in the United States,” the news release states. “Delivery of the first three vessels is expected within 36 months of the contract award.”
In a document published in April, the Coast Guard described the general capabilities it sought in the new class of Arctic vessel.
It is to be no longer than 360 feet, have a range of 6,500 nautical miles and be capable of “independently” breaking through ice 3 feet thick at a continuous speed of 3 knots.
The cutter would also need a flight deck and hangar to accommodate one helicopter.
