Matthew Roy
The energy policies of the United States and Europe toward Russia are clearly inconsistent. On the one hand, the Biden administration, backed by its NATO counterparts, has provided hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine and touted sanctions aimed at crippling the Russian economy. On the other hand, however, these countries continue to purchase Russian oil, natural gas and LNG, thereby replenishing state coffers that they claim are depleting. This hypocrisy is exacerbated by President Biden’s own domestic energy policies, which constrain U.S. production at a time when Europe is struggling to wean itself off dependence on Russian energy.
Against this backdrop, the incoming Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda represents a necessary and impactful adjustment. By expanding U.S. oil and gas production, Trump has laid out a strategy that aligns U.S. energy policy with its geopolitical needs. Such a framework not only enhances transatlantic energy security but also allows Trump to negotiate from a position of strength in his promised peace deal with Russia. This plan is both ambitious and pragmatic, and deserves priority attention – both because of its immediate utility and because of its potential to reintroduce consistency in an area where it has been sorely lacking.
The absurdity of this double deal is staggering to see NATO countries doling out billions of dollars to Ukraine while simultaneously funding the Kremlin's war machine through energy purchases. This is not just bureaucratic oversight but a lack of grand strategy. As Europe pivots and replenishes Moscow's coffers through direct and clandestine energy trade, sanctions ostensibly aimed at hampering the Russian economy become ineffective.
Russian crude, ostensibly barred from the European market, found refuge in third-party countries, mainly Central and East Asia, where it was reshuffled, refined and, with a plausibly plausible deniability, sold in Satisfied, I sold it back to Europe at a higher price. Take India, for example: once a negligible player in Russian oil imports, it is now suddenly the beneficiary of nearly 40% of Moscow's exports. Indian refineries convert this crude into diesel and other derivatives, which are then exported back to Europe. In essence, it was a clean money laundering operation – ensuring a steady flow of revenue to Russia while Europe paid a high price for its self-righteous isolation. The satire would be funny if the stakes weren't so high.
President Biden, meanwhile, has spent his term displaying an almost doctrinaire distaste for reliable U.S. energy development, a legacy that appears to be more a matter of pride than a matter of policy. His intentions were clear back in 2020, when he campaigned under the banner “No Fracking,” a slogan that was as simple as it was inspiring. On his first day in office, Biden immediately canceled the final phase of the Keystone XL pipeline project, a vital artery of North American energy interconnectivity. By the end of his first week in office, he had frozen all applications for oil and gas leases on public lands and imposed additional bureaucratic scrutiny on existing leases.
Biden then doubled down on his support for new climate legislation aimed at regulating methane emissions, a nod to Barack Obama's naked ambition to strangle fossil fuel production through regulators. Perhaps most objectionable to European allies seeking energy alternatives to Russia, Biden suspended LNG exports in January 2024. Fortress of the occasion, Biden has chosen to indulge in the ideological imperatives of his political base.
While U.S. LNG exports to Europe have indeed surged to historic highs since the war broke out in 2022, it is important to understand that this is a market reaction despite, not because of, Biden’s energy policies. It's a market reaction. Biden's top priority has always been to use the government to block natural gas development, even as European allies face a crisis of supply cuts and uncertainty.
The contrast between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on energy policy is a study in opposites. Trump’s slogan, “Drill, baby, drill,” encapsulates a vision of “energy dominance” that is unapologetically ambitious, unabashedly pro-development, and unmistakably American. During his first term, Trump quickly approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, cut through the bureaucratic thicket, expedited oil and gas leasing, and significantly quadrupled liquefied natural gas exports.
Now, with billions of dollars of capital at stake, the energy industry eagerly awaits the return of that spirit of decisive action. The approval backlog is a heavy burden created by the Biden administration, leaving programs stalled for months or even years amid dithering in Washington. Under Trump, the energy industry thrives not on government prudence but on liberation from government hands. With Chris Wright and Doug Burgum elected as Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Interior respectively, one can safely assume that the new administration will once again unleash the freedom and creativity that drives American industry .
Some in Europe are also looking to Trump to lead new directions in energy and foreign policy. Friend and political ally Viktor Orban has railed against the European status quo and sought a negotiated end to violence in Ukraine. Hungary under Orban imports almost 100% of natural gas from Russia for home heating, power generation and industrial production. Orbán has been heavily criticized by Western countries for his realpolitik approach of maintaining normal relations with the only provider of indispensable resources, leaving his landlocked country with currently no other options. But even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump and Orban, recently changed her tune and expressed enthusiasm for Trump's new energy policy.
After Donald Trump was elected, conversations between Trump and von der Leyen quickly turned to strategic matters of substance, including proposals to expand U.S. liquefied natural gas exports to Europe. “Liquefied natural gas is one of the subjects we are talking about,” von der Leyen said. “We still get a lot of LNG through Russia. Why not replace it with U.S. LNG, which is cheaper and could lower our energy prices? This is just preparation for the upcoming tariff negotiations,” the Politico analysis concluded. It is a face-saving proposal to import more LNG to rebalance the trade deficit that von der Leyen cannot actually implement. This is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but there is another pending negotiation directly affected by this topic. The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian peace agreement.
After all, energy is not just a microeconomic issue limited to the concerns of its own industry; it is a sine qua non of a modern economy. Therefore, it is an important factor in national security and social stability. By recalibrating Europe's energy dependence on U.S. liquefied natural gas, Trump is using not only an instrument of economic leverage but also a geopolitical adjustment tool that may be integral in shaping the contours of peace. In this context, the LNG discussion is not just transactional but emblematic of a larger, more important strategy.
It would be overly optimistic to say that energy trade alone can bring Russia to heel. However, it is not without merit as a bargaining tool. Although Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal for increased LNG trade is little more than rhetoric, it nonetheless serves a tactical purpose: it demonstrates seriousness, attracts attention, and shifts the negotiating table in favor of the United States. The direction is tilted. After all, negotiations are an intricate ballet full of feints, hints, and veiled threats—each designed to unsettle the opponent and recalibrate the balance of power.
With 1 million casualties and Russia recently relaxing its nuclear doctrine and deploying new nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles on the battlefield, the stakes have never been higher and the reasons for de-escalation and peace have never been clearer. As John McCain famously described Russia, energy policy does matter when fighting a proxy war against “gas stations masquerading as states.” What one sees in Trump's vision is not just a game of transactions but a reaffirmation of the principles of economic and military power that are the keys to effective diplomacy.
Matthew Roy is an energy industry professional with over a decade of experience in corporate management and strategy. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Danube Institute Budapest Fellowship Program, focusing on energy policy.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and provided via RealClearWire.
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