When the going gets tough, the EU buys American gas. Or at least that’s the emerging strategy as Brussels preps a shiny new road map to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels—while simultaneously dangling a $350 billion olive branch in front of President Trump in hopes he’ll holster the tariff threats.
European Council President Antonio Costa has told Bloomberg this week that the May 6 plan—to be imminently released—will send a clear political signal to energy companies: start sourcing more LNG from the good ol’ US of A. Translation? Europe wants to swap Putin’s pipelines for Trump’s tankers—but only if the price is right.
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This whole dance is happening as the EU tries to fix two problems at once. First, it still needs to unwind long-term gas contracts with Russia—awkward since some countries (Hungary) won’t sign off on outright sanctions. Second, Trump is demanding that Europe close the trade gap by purchasing U.S. energy—now.
His solution? Fork over $350 billion for LNG and we’ll call it even.
That’s no small ask. For context, the EU imported about 75 million tons of LNG last year. Trump wants them to add another 40 million tons on top of that.
To make this work, the EU is floating the idea of pooling member demand into a big, bulk-buy basket to score a better price. Whether U.S. producers can—or will—sell that much gas at European-friendly prices remains to be seen. Especially when some of them are already grumbling that the notion of “energy dominance” hasn’t exactly paid off lately.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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