Trump has rising stranglehold over EU and UK vitality provide, examine exhibits | Europe

[ad_1] Donald Trump has a stranglehold over EU and UK vitality provide on account of Europe swapping its dependency on Russia for reliance on the US, evaluation has proven.

Partially because of the conflict in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions on Russian pipeline gasoline, European nations have turn into depending on shipments of US liquified pure gasoline (LNG), in line with a paper co-authored by the Clingendael Institute, in The Hague, the Ecologic Institute, in Berlin, and the Norwegian Institute of Worldwide Affairs.

The event is fraught with danger at a time when Trump has shifted “in the direction of a extra explicitly interest-driven, protectionist and ideologically charged strategy”, the paper says.

The US president has most not too long ago threatened to make use of tariffs on commerce with European allies so as get their settlement on his acquisition of Greenland, which is a part of Denmark, an EU member state and Nato ally.

Trump’s controversial nationwide safety technique paper revealed in November explicitly said that the White Home was searching for US vitality dominance, which “when and the place crucial – permits us to undertaking energy”.

Information confirmed that imports to the European Financial Space of US LNG – pure gasoline that's supercooled to make it simpler to move – elevated by 61% in 2025. The EEA includes the 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Imports to the EEA have been up 485% in contrast with 2019 and US LNG now accounted for 59% of LNG imports to the EU, in line with gasoline flows information from December.

In 2024, the UK lined 50% of its gasoline demand with home manufacturing and 33% with imports from the EEA. It's in any other case reliant on LNG, of which shipments from the US made up 68% of its whole imports.

Pipeline gasoline imports from Russia accounted for 60% of EEA gasoline imports in 2019 however by 2025 this share had fallen to eight%.

Prof Kacper Szulecki, of the Norwegian Institute of Worldwide Affairs, mentioned: “We now have to acknowledge the brand new actuality of Donald Trump’s American vitality dominance and take a look at Europe’s imports cautiously.

“The US nationwide safety technique of 2025 explicitly frames vitality exports as a method to undertaking energy. The US has tried an analogous strategy within the Nineteen Eighties below Ronald Reagan, trying to speak European companions out of gasoline commerce with the USSR. However again then there was no expertise for liquefying pure gasoline, so Europe had no various however Russian pipeline gasoline.”

Szulecki mentioned there was a short-term danger of upper vitality payments on account of the latest tensions.

“In the meanwhile, gasoline reserves within the EU are very low, the bottom in years, and decrease than on the outset of the conflict in Ukraine. If now we have a chilly winter and tensions with the US, resulting in additional worth will increase and reserve depletion, we'd see a extremely dramatic vitality disaster within the coming months,” he mentioned.

“The EU is contemplating breaking commerce offers with the US in response to the Greenland tariffs, however as policymakers in Brussels level out, there is no such thing as a actual various to the gasoline from the US in the mean time.”

Raffaele Piria, the initiator of the report and a senior researcher on the Ecologic Institute, mentioned the UK, now outdoors the only market, was simply as uncovered as its European allies.

“The UK is affected by precisely the identical geopolitical and financial vulnerabilities because the European Financial Space, and actually it's bodily and economically absolutely built-in within the European gasoline grid and gasoline market,” he mentioned.

“Because the invasion of Ukraine, the EU has paid a excessive worth for its reliance on Russia in vitality commerce. The US gave the impression to be a dependable various. Traditionally, interferences by the US authorities in gasoline markets to exert strain on Europe have been thought of unthinkable. Within the present geopolitical context, this assumption is questionable.”

The paper argues that Europe must act on condition that “vitality – significantly gasoline – exports more and more operate as a device of strategic leverage”. Within the medium to long run, Europe ought to “speed up the transition to an environment friendly and trendy vitality system based mostly on indigenous renewable sources”, it says.