The United States has threatened, once again, to quit the International Energy Agency (IEA) if the organization, created in the aftermath of the 1970s Arab oil embargo, doesn’t return to forecasting energy demand without strongly promoting green energy.
“If it goes back to what it was — it was a fabulous international data recording agency, it was getting into critical minerals, was focused on big energy issues — we’re all in on that,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said ahead of an IEA ministerial meeting this week.
“But if they insist that it’s so dominated and infused with climate stuff — yes, then we’re out,” Secretary Wright said ahead of the meeting, as carried by Bloomberg.
Last November, the IEA dropped its predictions that oil demand growth would peak in a matter of a few years in the first major shift since it started promoting net-zero and green energy early this decade.
The tension between the Trump Administration and the IEA has escalated in recent months.
A House committee last summer approved a bill that the U.S. withdraw its funding to the IEA, as the Republican lawmakers consider that the agency has strayed from its mission to safeguard energy security and has been pushing green energy policies instead.
In July 2025, Secretary Wright said that the United States could abandon the IEA if the organization continues with its strong advocacy for renewables and doesn’t return to rational analysis of energy demand and promoting energy security.
“We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw,” Wright told Bloomberg in an interview in the middle of July.
“My strong preference is to reform it,” Secretary Wright added.
The official echoed voices in the U.S. Republican party that the agency has become an advocate of the energy transition and is not objective in forecasting energy demand trends.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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