Northerners see Trump’s U.S. as greater threat to Arctic than Russia: poll

Canada’s foreign affairs minister was warned Russian, Chinese presence has introduced 'a high degree of uncertainty' into Arctic security.

Northern Canadians see U.S. President Donald Trump’s America as a greater threat to Canada’s Arctic security than Russia or China, as the region attracts greater attention from both polar and non-polar powers, according to recent polling.

The polling data comes as Canada’s foreign affairs minister is being warned that current tensions with Russia and China’s growing presence in the Far North is introducing a “high degree of uncertainty regarding the future of Arctic sovereignty.”

Polling released in September by L’Observatoire de la politique et de la sécurité de l’Arctique (OPSA), a Québec-based research center, found that a full 37 per cent of Northerners felt the United States is the “most serious threat” to Canada’s North, followed by Moscow (35 per cent) and Beijing (17 per cent).

“To see the U.S. as the number one threat, it’s quite alarming, quite surprising,” said Mathieu Landriault, OPSA’s director.

Landriault said the sentiment is particularly strong among respondents in Yukon, who share a border with Alaska, and in Nunavut, whose northern neighbour, Greenland, is facing repeated threats from the Trump administration.

“There’s that feeling that the U.S. now is a destabilizing force in the region, for sure,” Landriault added.

Trump’s tariffs, executive orders and his repeated rhetoric around making Canada the 51st state —which resurfaced this week in a rambling address to America’s military brass — have “significantly shifted the security landscape in the North,” OPSA noted in its findings.

While it was the first time OPSA polled Northerners on this question, the group noted their findings do not “bode well” for the future of Canada-U.S. cooperation in the North, given the administration “is now seen as a credible threat to Canada on par with a traditional foe like Russia.”