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US president-elect Donald Trump has warned the EU that it must commit to buying “large scale” amounts of US oil and gas or face tariffs.
“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.
Trump’s threat follows overtures already made by Brussels offering to buy more US liquefied natural gas, which has been a lifeline for the bloc after Russia squeezed supplies of fossil fuels following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in November that the EU would consider buying more gas from the US.
“We still get a lot of LNG from Russia and why not replace it by American LNG, which is cheaper for us and brings down our energy prices,” she told reporters.
“It seems odd as a ‘threat’ given that von der Leyen alluded to the possibility of doing precisely this,” one EU official observed.
Trump has threatened a blanket tariff of up to 20 per cent on all non-Chinese US imports. Last month, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde urged Europe’s political leaders to co-operate with him over tariffs and buy more products made in the US.
During Trump’s first presidency, then European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker offered to buy more US gas to stem the threats of a trade war.
Analysts at the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel said the EU should back up any offers to buy more American “with a credible threat of retaliation that could be implemented if the US decides to impose tariffs on EU exports”.
Prices for international oil benchmark Brent crude were down 0.4 per cent at $72.61 a barrel on Friday. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 0.4 per cent at $69.14 a barrel.
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