Blog Bio Ressources - What future for Green Europe ?

During a visit to Paris, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright reiterated his pro-fossil fuel and climate-skeptic credo and again threatened to withdraw the United States from the International Energy Agency, which he deemed too « dominated » by climate issues. This latest pronouncement from US officials serves as a reminder of the influence, through threats, that the United States wields over the world around it, primarily the European Union.

And it was particularly in the context of the conclusion of an August 2025 agreement between the United States and the European Union, the so-called « Turnberry Agreement, » that the United States seized the opportunity to emphasize its influence in energy matters.

An agreement symptomatic of a regression in climate protection in Europe

The agreement in question stipulates that the EU will be taxed at 15% on its exports to the United States. Before Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, they averaged 1.2%, weighting the calculation according to the economic weight of each sector. And in exchange? Nothing. The EU is avoiding any response.

It’s worth remembering that this agreement was reached in anticipation of a more severe tariff offensive by the United States. The American President had been tackling the trade deficit with the EU-27 (€151 billion in 2022 on trade in goods) for several years and seemed visibly inclined to impose the most incongruous tariffs to achieve this. Even in 2024, before his inauguration, Donald Trump intimidated the Union in a message on his social network, Truth, in which he stated, « I told the European Union that it must close its enormous deficit with the United States by buying our oil and gas on a massive scale. » Otherwise, it’s TAXES all the way!!!

But what accompanies these tariffs is what poses a threat to climate protection. Indeed, alongside these imposed tariffs, the European Union has also committed, within the framework of this agreement, to strategic purchases worth $750 billion (approximately €650 billion) over three years, or an average of $250 billion per year. This purchase covers oil, liquefied natural gas, nuclear energy, fuels, and chips, during Donald Trump’s presidency.

The United States has already become the leading exporter of liquefied natural gas among EU countries (reaching 45% in 2024), and also of oil (16%). “On the demand side, further increasing the US share of EU energy imports is easier said than done,” cautions Simone Tagliapietra, a researcher at the Bruegel Institute. This is especially true when European firms have already signed long-term contracts with other suppliers.

On Tuesday, July 29, 2025, the European Commission stated that the €750 billion “will help replace Russian gas and oil” still circulating in the EU. Since 2022 and the start of the war in Ukraine, the Commission has set a target of 2027 to end imports of Russian hydrocarbons. On Monday, July 28, the White House made no secret of its satisfaction, stating that the agreement “will strengthen US energy dominance.”

His request comes with a threat : if the Europeans do not comply, they will face a sharp increase in tariffs on their exports. This could be around 10%, if Donald Trump keeps his campaign promises. European leaders, who haven’t given up hope of avoiding a trade war, have anticipated this request. The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had already outlined, in early November 2024, the possibility of buying more American liquefied natural gas to replace imports from Russia. Purchases of Russian gas have decreased since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, but have never ceased.

However, the European promise seems hardly realistic. To fulfill it, EU countries would have to triple the amount of their purchases from across the Atlantic. In 2024, across all supply sources, EU countries spent nearly €376 billion on energy imports, according to Eurostat, including approximately €65 billion for deliveries from the United States, according to estimates by the Wall Street Journal.

The United States has already become the leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) among EU countries (reaching 45% in 2024), and also of oil (16%). “On the demand side, further increasing the US share of EU energy imports is easier said than done,” cautions Simone Tagliapietra, a researcher at the Bruegel Institute. Especially when European firms have already signed long-term contracts with other suppliers.

And even though the European Parliament suspended the implementation of the trade agreement on Monday, February 23, 2026, pending « clarification » from Washington on the consequences of a US Supreme Court decision that struck down most of Donald Trump’s tariffs on Friday, the situation remains dramatic : American threats are significantly hindering climate protection in Europe.

The extent of the setback

« We are not fighting fossil fuels, but only the (greenhouse gas) emissions they produce. »

The author of this statement is not Chris Wright, but Ursula von der Leyen. The President of the European Commission was speaking at the press conference concluding the G20 meeting on November 21 in Johannesburg.

This statement is not a clumsy remark. On the contrary, it is symptomatic of the ongoing alignment of the European Union with Donald Trump’s America. This alignment has taken the form, in recent months, of a series of regulatory rollbacks and concessions regarding the environment, health, and corporate social and environmental responsibility. These are all hallmarks of the Old Continent’s distinctiveness that are disappearing or being called into question at a dizzying pace.

Between the watering down of the European Green Deal, the postponement of the regulation on imported deforestation, the weakening of the proposed universal ban on « perennial pollutants, » the dismantling of the directive on corporate due diligence, and the barrage of « omnibus » legislative packages designed to « simplify » EU regulations on chemicals, the environment, automobiles, and food, the scale of the decline is palpable.

For example, on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, the European Commission presented an eighth legislative package – known as the « Omnibus » package, intended to make life easier for businesses, with the Commission claiming it will generate €1 billion in annual savings for companies.

In many respects, the talking points brandished to support these setbacks (fighting for Europe’s “competitiveness”, its “sovereignty”, dismantling the “complexity” of regulations, etc.) are little more than a smokescreen concealing the Union’s subservience. Its environmental and health standards are always presented as obstacles to freedom of enterprise and the performance of its economy, but they are also the instrument of its international power.

By making access to its vast internal market conditional on a series of health and environmental protection standards, Europe influences the structure of value chains worldwide and imposes its will far beyond its borders. It is now relinquishing Part of this power, which the American legal scholar Anu Bradford (Columbia University) dubbed the “Brussels effect” in 2012. In a way, it is the spirit of Munich that is currently blowing through Brussels. As in the 1930s, it fosters the illusion that, faced with a brutal and aggressive, authoritarian power with little regard for the law, only acquiescence can buy peace.