Ignoring Climate Threat and Economic Realities, Trump Brags About Building Fleet of LNG Terminals in EU—And Europe 'Will Pay For' Them

Responding to questions from reporters during a joint press conference with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the White House on Monday, President Donald Trump echoed his “And-Mexico’s-Gonna-Pay-for-It” routine by announcing plans to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals across the continent for the expressed purpose of importing fracked gas from the United States.

“The Trump administration continues to not only ignore climate change, the greatest economic and security threat the world faces, when imagining that the world needs all this LNG, but also ignores economic reality.”
—Lorne Stockman, Oil Change International”We are already talking to the European Union about building anywhere from nine to 11 ports—which they will pay for—so that we can ship our LNG over to various parts of Europe,” Trump stated. “And that will be more competition.”

In response to a question about a gas pipeline from Russia, Trump said, “I’d like to see a competing pipeline” to that. Turning to Conte, Trump added, “So Mr. Prime Minister, I hope we’re going to be able to do that competing pipeline.”

The comments come on the heels of Trump boasting last week that the EU would “be buying vast amounts of LNG!” after he reached an agreement with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Critics, however, quickly denounced the president’s latest comments for both environmental and economic reasons.

“The Trump administration continues to not only ignore climate change, the greatest economic and security threat the world faces, when imagining that the world needs all this LNG, but also ignores economic reality,” Lorne Stockman, senior research analyst at Oil Change International, explained to Common Dreams in an email.

Despite the president’s claims about what the EU will do, there’s little evidence to support the idea that Europe is on the verge of a giant LNG import binge. As Reuters noted, “three-quarters of Europe’s existing import facilities lie empty while demand for U.S. LNG on the continent remains limited.” According to an analysis by Food & Water Watch Europe released earlier this year, the utilization rate of Europe’s existing LNG import terminals shows there is no need for new facilities.

“If we don’t want to lock Europe into even more fossil fuels and move to a renewable energy system, we cannot waste money on LNG infrastructure but have to channel as much financial and political support as possible to renewables,” wrote Andy Gheorghiu and Frida Kieninger, the authors of the group’s analysis, in April.

As Stockman added, “Europe’s existing LNG import terminals are being utilized at very low levels. The need for more is like most of Trump’s trade policy—illusory.”

Politico, meanwhile, called it “the art of the no-deal,” as the “U.S. is already exporting LNG to Europe. Market forces will largely determine whether its share will go up in the future.”