Their wording: “The Arctic is opening up and the great powers that position themselves there now will have the advantage for decades. Russia and China are already there. We are not. That has to change”

Rubio frames the Arctic through the lens of great power competition rather than territorial acquisition, using his foreign policy experience to cast the issue as a strategic gap that must be filled. His framing is more diplomatic than Trump's but reaches a similar conclusion about the necessity of US Arctic presence

Their wording: “We cannot accept a situation where adversarial powers establish strategic positions in the Western Hemisphere, whether that is in Venezuela, Cuba, or the Arctic”

Rubio connects the Greenland issue to his broader hemispheric security framework, treating Arctic competition as part of the same challenge as Russian and Chinese presence in Latin America. This creates a unified worldview where US dominance across the Western Hemisphere is both a right and a security necessity

Their wording: “The United States has historically expanded its territory and strategic reach when national security demanded it - Alaska, the Panama Canal Zone, military basing agreements worldwide”

Rubio employs a more diplomatic version of Trump's territorial expansion argument, emphasizing precedent and security necessity rather than raw transactional acquisition. However, the underlying premise is the same: great powers have the right to extend their strategic control when they determine it serves their interests