Is Trump eyeing Canada’s Arctic? Residents are worried — and Carney’s 2025 budget addresses potential threats

Canada’s Arctic is emerging as a potential flashpoint between the country and the U.S. Residents in the North say the superpower is now their biggest concern, according to the latest polls, and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s newly announced autumn budget He allocated millions to ensure security in Canada’s north.

The government has committed $81.8 billion over five years to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), focusing on protecting Canada’s sovereignty. The funding will be used for the reconstruction, rearmament and reinvestment of the CAF, with $76 million allocated specifically to the Northern regions.

“Through these investments, we are providing our Canadian Armed Forces with the tools they need to defend every square inch of our sovereign territory, from the seabed to the Arctic, from cities to cyberspace, and protect Canadians from existing and emerging threats.” states the budget.

Earlier this year the Observatoire de la politique et de la sécurité de l’Arctique (OPSA) Survey was conducted with 608 residents He lives in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut and asks them what the biggest threat to Canada’s North is. 37 percent followed the USA, 35 percent followed Russia, and 17 percent followed China. While 85 per cent said Canada should exercise its Arctic sovereignty or it would lose the region, 62 per cent said Canada “should take a firm line in defending parts of the Arctic” and 26 per cent preferred a diplomatic approach on border or resource disputes.

The findings came according to the statement of University of Toronto politics professor Franklyn Griffiths. wrote in The Globe and Mail He said US President Donald Trump could use the Arctic as an opening move to annex Canada by sending warships to the region without Canada’s permission.

After the United States sent an unauthorized ship through the waterway in 1985, the United States must obtain permission from Canada before passing through the Northwest Passage, as agreed in 1988, causing a flare-up. The US has already made clear that it wants the passage to be in international waters and does not require Canadian permission to travel in those waters. In 2019, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Canada’s claim to the route “illegitimate.”

University of Calgary political science professor and arctic expert Rob Huebert told Yahoo Canada that if the U.S. doesn’t seek permission to pass through the pass, it would be “a very real sovereignty threat to Canada.” He said Griffiths was right to be concerned about such a possibility, but disagreed with the idea of ​​the US sending a warship as a show of force because it was too vulnerable to damage from Arctic ice. Instead, Huebert thinks it could be one of two icebreakers.

“If they send a ship, they’re going to have to do a lot of planning,” he said, noting that icebreakers are in high demand. “This has to be a political decision at the highest level because frankly the U.S. Coast Guard has better things to do on its own time.”

Expert says move from US would be ‘completely illogical’

However, Huebert said it would be “completely unreasonable” for the United States to send ships through Canada’s Arctic because it would open the door for Russia and China to also use the passage if it were declared international waters.

Pierre Leblanc, director of Arctic Security Consultants and former commander of the joint task force in the North, said: Yahoo Canada The right of way through the Northwest Passage will allow not only ships, but also submarines and aircraft to use it.

“Soviet bombers could fly through the Northwest Passage and pass over the northern part of Canada,” he said. “One of the problems, naturally, is that bombers are firing hypersonic cruise missiles from a position over the Northwest Passage and [U.S.] they are now much shorter than when they were fired from far above northern Canada.”

Although it does not make strategic sense for the country for the United States to go through the transition without its consent, Leblanc notes that the country has exhibited behavior similar to a tyrant who does not follow the rules so far in Trump’s second term as president. This behavior could make a show of force in the Arctic contrary to the current agreement more palatable than under the previous US administration.

Trump has already detained suspected illegal immigrants through ICE forces without a warrant, opened fire on suspected narcotics traffickers off the coast of Venezuela without due process, and threatened to arrest them. Greenland because “we need it. We must have it.”

Leblanc said the same disrespect for norms could apply to Canada’s Arctic, which has valuable natural resources and is of great strategic importance to the region by establishing hegemony against Russia and China.

Jessica Shadian, president and CEO of think tank Arctic360, told Yahoo Canada that it’s the critical minerals in the North that present opportunities for Canada to weaken. He cited the US agreement with Ukraine to provide more military support to the country in exchange for privileged access to critical minerals as a sign of how the US likes to act when it comes to other countries it now sees opportunities to benefit from.

“We should always be concerned when a country takes other countries’ critical resources and owns them,” he said. “There are many ways Canada can be cut off at the kneecaps.”