Trump Ordered 11 Polar Icebreakers After a Round of Golf With Finland's President — Twice What the Coast Guard Said It Needed

The New York Times reported on Aug. 1 that President Trump's decision to buy 11 polar icebreakers followed a phone call to Finnish President Alexander Stubb and a subsequent golf outing, and that the resulting contracts are being awarded without competitive bidding. The Times reported the order is twice the number the Coast Guard, which operates the fleet, had said it needed, and that experts question whether the United States requires so many. Under the U.S.-Finland arrangement announced at the White House, the first four vessels are to be built in Finnish yards and seven more in the United States; the memorandum of understanding included Trump's waiver of the domestic-build requirement for national security vessels. White House officials put the value of the 11-ship order at $6.1 billion.

Federal procurement normally requires competition, and the exemptions that allow an agency to skip it are narrow. Sizing a multibillion-dollar shipbuilding program above the operating service's stated requirement, and then awarding the work without competitive bids, moves two separate checks — needs analysis and price discovery — out of the process at once.

No shipbuilding contracts had been signed at the time of the initial announcement, with vessel counts and costs left to be settled. The Times's account of the golf outing and the no-bid awards has not been publicly disputed by the administration.