In preparation for President-elect Donald J. Trump's return to the White House, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is considering replacing Russian liquid natural gas (LNG) imports with supplies from the United States. Then he suggested.
Speaking at the European Council in Budapest on Friday, EU President von der Leyen vowed to “build good relations” with the incoming Trump administration “from the very beginning.”
“I had the opportunity to congratulate Mr. Donald J. Trump on the phone yesterday afternoon. We talked about Ukraine, defense, trade, and energy, among other topics,” she said. said.
In contrast to 2016, when European leaders treated the populist president-elect with shallow disdain, the tone from EU leaders is that Trump will seek a strong mandate from the American people to rule in Washington. This week seems to indicate that they are aware of this position.
Von der Leyen emphasized that Brussels is likely to make concessions in expected trade negotiations with the Trump administration to reduce continued dependence on Russia and address the US trade deficit with Europe. He pointed out that US energy imports may increase.
She said she “touched on” the issue of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports during her conversation with the president-elect.
“We still get a lot of LG from Russia via Russia. Why not replace that with LNG from the United States, because it's cheaper for the United States and lowers energy prices,” the EU chief said.
In her remarks, Mrs. von der Leyen said that “we need stable and secure supply chains to drive our economic future,” and that “excessive dependencies can quickly turn into vulnerabilities.” “There is,” he admitted.
During his first term in office, President Trump frequently criticized European powers that rely heavily on energy imports from Russia, while expecting the United States to pay for protecting European countries from Russia.
In July 2018, President Trump said: “It's very sad that Germany is paying billions of dollars a year for this big oil and gas deal with Russia when we're supposed to be on the lookout for Russia.”Russia . We protect Germany, we protect France, we protect all these countries. ”
“We pay a lot of money to protect and this has been going on for decades… This is very unfair to our country and very unfair to taxpayers. …These countries need to step it up now, not over a 10-year period.”
The president also warned that countries like Germany would become “captives” of President Vladimir Putin because of their overreliance on Russian gas and oil.
At the time, President Trump warned that literally laughed at by the Germans. However, in 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine caught the EU by surprise, plunging the continent into an energy crisis that continues to strain the European economy to this day, and the government in Berlin collapsed under financial pressure. His words became prophetic. week.
