Why the Arctic should — and probably will — stay on Trump’s foreign policy agenda
Joël Plouffe, Arctic Now
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s attendance at the Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Fairbanks this week, as the United States hands over the council’s chairmanship to Finland for the next two years, draws national and global attention to the region.
Tillerson will be the first Republican secretary of state ever to attend an Arctic Council ministerial meeting in the 20 years since the council was established. (Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who attended in 2011, was the first Democratic secretary of state to do so.)
The key question now is whether Tillerson’s attendance at the ministerial in Alaska is a one-off event or rather an indication that Trump’s foreign policy in the Arctic will keep the pace of American bilateral and multilateral engagements of the past several years.
