Trump has growing stranglehold over EU and UK energy supply, study shows

 

 Trump has growing stranglehold over EU and UK energy supply, study shows

 

European countries now reliant on US liquified natural gas shipments, creating risk of higher bills amid recent tensions

 

Daniel Boffey Chief reporter

Wed 21 Jan 2026 01.01 CET

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/21/trump-us-stranglehold-eu-uk-energy-supply-lng

 

Donald Trump has a stranglehold over EU and UK energy supply as a result of Europe swapping its dependency on Russia for reliance on the US, analysis has shown.

 

In part due to the war in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions on Russian pipeline gas, European countries have become dependent on shipments of US liquified natural gas (LNG), according to a paper co-authored by the Clingendael Institute, in The Hague, the Ecologic Institute, in Berlin, and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

 

The development is fraught with risk at a time when Trump has shifted “towards a more explicitly interest-driven, protectionist and ideologically charged approach”, the paper says.

 

The US president has most recently threatened to use tariffs on trade with European allies in order get their agreement on his acquisition of Greenland, which is part of Denmark, an EU member state and Nato ally.

 

Trump’s controversial national security strategy paper published in November explicitly stated that the White House was seeking US energy dominance, which “when and where necessary – enables us to project power”.

 

Data showed that imports to the European Economic Area of US LNG – natural gas that is supercooled to make it easier to transport – increased by 61% in 2025. The EEA comprises the 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

 

Imports to the EEA were up 485% compared with 2019 and US LNG now accounted for 59% of LNG imports to the EU, according to gas flows data from December.

 

In 2024, the UK covered 50% of its gas demand with domestic production and 33% with imports from the EEA. It is otherwise reliant on LNG, of which shipments from the US made up 68% of its total imports.

 

Pipeline gas imports from Russia accounted for 60% of EEA gas imports in 2019 but by 2025 this share had fallen to 8%.

 

Prof Kacper Szulecki, of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said: “We have to acknowledge the new reality of Donald Trump’s American energy dominance and look at Europe’s imports cautiously.

 

“The US national security strategy of 2025 explicitly frames energy exports as a way to project power. The US has tried a similar approach in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, attempting to talk European partners out of gas trade with the USSR. But back then there was no technology for liquefying natural gas, so Europe had no alternative but Russian pipeline gas.”

 

Szulecki said there was a short-term risk of higher energy bills as a result of the recent tensions.

 

“At the moment, gas reserves in the EU are very low, the lowest in years, and lower than at the outset of the war in Ukraine. If we have a cold winter and tensions with the US, leading to further price increases and reserve depletion, we might see a really dramatic energy crisis in the coming months,” he said.

 

“The EU is considering breaking trade deals with the US in response to the Greenland tariffs, but as policymakers in Brussels point out, there is no real alternative to the gas from the US at the moment.”

 

Raffaele Piria, the initiator of the report and a senior researcher at the Ecologic Institute, said the UK, now outside the single market, was just as exposed as its European allies.

 

“The UK is affected by exactly the same geopolitical and economic vulnerabilities as the European Economic Area, and in fact it is physically and economically fully integrated in the European gas grid and gas market,” he said.

 

“Since the invasion of Ukraine, the EU has paid a high price for its reliance on Russia in energy trade. The US seemed to be a reliable alternative. Historically, interferences by the US government in gas markets to exert pressure on Europe were considered unthinkable. In the current geopolitical context, this assumption is questionable.”

 

The paper argues that Europe needs to act given that “energy – particularly gas – exports increasingly function as a tool of strategic leverage”. In the medium to long term, Europe should “accelerate the transition to an efficient and modern energy system based on indigenous renewable sources”, it says.