Trump says 40 icebreakers will be ordered for U.S. fleet, though plans for purchase are unclear

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - During a press conference centered on Hurricane Helene earlier this month, Pres. Donald Trump suggested 40 icebreakers will be ordered as a massive addition to the United States’ current fleet of just two heavy icebreaker ships, though a formal plan and potential cost of such an endeavor remain unclear.

Trump responded to a reporter’s question about trade and tariffs during the Jan. 24 presser by in part pointing to what he said is the United States spending millions of dollars to support Canada.

“We’re going to order about 40 Coast Guard icebreakers, big ones,” Trump said. “And all of a sudden, Canada wants a piece of the deal. I say, ‘Why are we doing that?’”

The possible purchase of additional icebreakers wasn’t mentioned again during the press conference, which took place about a month after the Coast Guard announcement that the building of the country’s first Polar Security Cutter had been approved and is underway.

An August 2024 report from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the building of the first polar security cutter, based on 2024 dollar value, would cost $1.9 billion. CBO records consider 2019 as the year the PSC was authorized – as the CBO considers the year the bulk of the money for any polar icebreaker was appropriated as the year of its authorization – and the ship is projected to be commissioned in 2029.

Members of Alaska’s Congressional delegation reacted this week to the president’s mention of a possible order of icebreakers.

A prepared statement from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in part that she’s happy to see Trump share her “enthusiasm for the Arctic.”

“This announcement comes at a critical time, as our global adversaries expand their already larger fleets,” she said. “China, despite not being an Arctic nation, remains on track to surpass our icebreaker capacity in the near future. Additionally, Russia’s substantial fleet far exceeds our current ability to project power in the Arctic.”

Murkowski said that she is “encouraged” by the Trump Administration’s announcement, adding that she looks forward to collaborating to make the shared vision of bringing more icebreakers to Alaska a reality.

The state’s junior senator, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, called the goal of 40 new icebreakers “ambitious,” but also expressed excitement over the idea. A statement from his office said Sullivan’s work with Trump during his first term in office, as well as with Fmr. Pres. Joe Biden included discussions over increasing icebreaker capacity for the U.S., specifically through the potential purchase of commercially available icebreakers.

“In recent meetings with incoming Trump administration cabinet officials, particularly the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget director, Senator Sullivan raised the importance of building out the U.S. icebreaker fleet,” a Sullivan spokesperson wrote via email on Thursday. “Senator Sullivan thinks that an ambitious goal of 40 new icebreakers would be great.”

While the U.S. has two heavy icebreakers that are operational, Russia has 54 icebreakers, his office said, many of which are nuclear-powered and weaponized.

Those two polar icebreakers to which Sullivan’s office referred – the Polar Star and the Healy, authorized in 1971 and 1990, and commissioned in 1976 and 2000, respectively – are to continue to be used by the Coast Guard until it can design and build replacements, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The GAO said in a recent report that both ships are “near or beyond their planned service lives, respectively, and require extensive maintenance.”

As such, $172 million is being invested between the two ships to extend the lives of both the Healy and Polar Star.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, R-Alaska, responded to the supposed plans for 40 new icebreakers via social media by saying the announcement is “great news for Alaska,” and linked to a related article from Forbes on the announcement, though the author of the same article noted within his story that Trump’s statement was “widely dismissed by industry experts as a gaffe.”

The report from the GAO, released on Dec. 19 and detailing potential Coast Guard acquisitions of additions to its icebreaker fleet, offers a glimpse of costs and the possibility of the Coast Guard expansion, coming to the conclusion that further cost and affordability analyses are needed.

“The U.S. Coast Guard, a component within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), stated that it needs more polar icebreakers to meet its missions in the Arctic and Antarctic,” according to the GAO report. “This is, in part, because it currently has insufficient capacity to assure U.S. presence and reliable access to the Arctic.”

In the December 2024 report, the GAO made two recommendations to the Coast Guard, saying it should develop a detailed cost estimate for a commercially available, medium-sized polar icebreaker that incorporates modifications it wants to make, and — the GAO said — it should do an analysis of the cost and sequencing for the polar icebreaker fleet expansion overall, to include how that could be affordable.

The Department of Homeland Security said it “did not concur” with the first recommendation but did agree with the second.

The GAO could not share any additional comment on the announcement made during Trump’s presser, a spokesperson said, adding that the office conducts its work at the request of Congress and therefore can only speak to its published work.

However, it did say that the cost for 40 icebreakers is unclear for multiple reasons. Among those reasons, it said, are that it is unclear whether the 40 icebreakers include polar icebreakers or non-polar icebreakers, or a mix of those; and the Coast Guard’s estimate for acquiring any icebreakers is considered underestimated, and is under revision.

Along with working to acquire three PSC ships, and having already acquired one commercial icebreaker known as the Storis – formerly Aiviq, and slated to be homeported in Juneau – a GAO spokesperson said there are also plans to acquire an unknown quantity of Arctic security cutters, which are medium polar icebreakers. Notably, the Coast Guard already has a fleet of 33 domestic, non-polar icebreakers, and two types of ice-capable buoy tender vessels that are used for icebreaking missions.

“The Coast Guard has not determined the total number of polar icebreakers it needs, what the mix should be (heavy or medium), or how much this will all cost,” the spokesperson wrote. “In June 2024, we testified that the three PSC’s were going to cost more than the Coast Guard’s established $3.1 billion cost threshold... in April 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of the three PSC’s to be about $5.1 billion. The Coast Guard is in the process of reevaluating its cost estimate and planned to have updated costs in 2025.”

The first step toward a fleet of 40 new icebreakers, the GAO said, begins with the December 2024 recommendation, with the Coast Guard expected to make a case for the icebreakers it needs, followed by the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security moving through formal requirements development and an acquisition process to decide on a program of record and how that would be funded.

A request for comment made to the Coast Guard 17th District – headquartered in Juneau – about the president’s comments on obtaining 40 additional icebreakers, cost and possibility of such a plan, was forwarded to a federal spokesperson. As of press time, Alaska’s News Source had not yet received a response from the agency.

To read more about the recently-approved PSC, visit this Coast Guard website on the project, which features additional details on the first heavy polar icebreaker to be constructed in the U.S. in more than half a century.

Author’s note: This story has been updated with additional information.

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