With Trade Tensions High, Pompeo Faults China Over Arctic Stance
- Top U.S. diplomat says China should get ‘exactly nothing’
- Comments come one day after Trump warned of higher tariffs
A passenger watches ice breaking from the deck of a Russian icebreaker ship in Radstock Bay.
Photographer: Mark Peterson/Corbis Historical via Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said China is entitled to “exactly nothing” in the Arctic, rejecting any claim it may have on the resource-rich region and highlighting another area of dispute after President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs.
Pompeo, speaking in Rovaniemi, Finland, before a meeting of the Arctic Council, painted a dire picture of what the Arctic might look like if China were allowed broad leeway in the region, warning of ecological devastation and reiterating what he called the threat posed by Chinese debt and shoddy infrastructure projects. China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in early 2018.