EU Ready to Buy More U.S. LNG to Make Trump Happy

The European Union is ready to commit to buying more liquefied natural gas from the United States if that would appease President Trump and make him reconsider tariffs on EU imports, the EU’s energy commissioner has said.

“There is potential for us to buy more LNG from the US but of course it needs to be on conditions that are also in line with our [green] transition,” Dan Jørgensen said, as quoted by the Financial Times. The commissioner also boasted that the EU was scheduled to install a record amount of new wind and solar this year, as it doubles down on these two forms of energy to reduce energy bills.

President Donald Trump started urging the European Union to step up its purchases of crude oil and liquefied natural gas from the U.S. if it wants to avoid tariffs on all imports back in January, as he took office.

“The one thing they can do quickly is buy our oil and gas,” Trump told the media at the time. “We will straighten that out with tariffs, or they have to buy our oil and gas.”

This week, as he doubled down on his global tariff push, Trump demanded that the EU commit to buying an extra $350 billion worth of U.S. LNG to erase its trade surplus with the United States.

“We have a deficit with the European Union of $350 billion and it's gonna disappear fast,” Trump said, as quoted by Politico. "One of the ways that that can disappear easily and quickly is they're gonna have to buy our energy from us ... they can buy it, we can knock off $350 billion in one week. They have to buy and commit to buy a like amount of energy.”

$350 billion worth of LNG is roughly equal to some 40 million tons of the superchilled fuel. The EU’s total LNG imports last year clocked in at some 75 million tons, per the bloc’s statistics agency, Eurostat.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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