BERLIN — Friedrich Merz embarks on his first trip to the Persian Gulf region as chancellor on Wednesday in search of new energy and business deals he sees as critical to reducing Germany’s dependence on the U.S. and China. The three-day trip with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates illustrates Merz’s approach to what he calls a dangerous new epoch of “great power politics” — one in which the U.S. under President Donald Trump is no longer a reliable partner. European countries must urgently embrace their own brand of hard power by forging new global trade alliances, including in the Middle East, or risk becoming subject to the coercion of greater powers, Merz argues. Accompanying Merz on the trip is a delegation of business executives looking to cut new deals on everything from energy to defense. But one of the chancellor’s immediate goals is to reduce his country’s growing dependence on U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which has replaced much of the Russian gas that formerly flowed to Germany through the Nord Stream pipelines. Increasingly, German leaders across the political spectrum believe they’ve replaced their country’s unhealthy dependence on Russian energy with an increasingly precarious dependence on the U.S. Early this week, Merz’s economy minister, Katherina Reiche, traveled to Saudi Arabia ahead of the chancellor to sign a memorandum to deepen the energy ties between both countries, including a planned hydrogen energy deal. “When partnerships that we have relied on for decades start to become a little fragile, we have to look for new partners,” Reiche said in Riyadh. ‘EXCESSIVE DEPENDENCE’ Last year, 96 percent of German LNG imports came from the U.S, according to the federal government. While that amount makes up only about one-tenth of the country’s total natural gas imports, the U.S. share is set to rise sharply over the next years, in part because the EU agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of energy from the U.S. by the end of 2028 as part of its trade agreement with the Trump administration. The EU broadly is even more dependent on U.S. LNG, which accounted for more than a quarter of the bloc’s natural gas imports in 2025. This share is expected to rise to 40 percent by 2030. German politicians across the political spectrum are increasingly pushing for Merz’s government to find new alternatives. “After Russia’s war of aggression, we have learned the hard way that excessive dependence on individual countries can have serious consequences for our country,” said Sebastian Roloff, a lawmaker focusing on energy for the center-left Social Democrats, who rule in a coalition with Merz’s conservatives. Roloff said Trump’s recent threat to take over Greenland and the new U.S. national security strategy underscored the need to “avoid creating excessive dependence again” and diversify sources of energy supply. The Trump administration’s national security strategy vows to use “American dominance” in oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy to “project power” globally, raising fears in Europe that the U.S. will use energy exports to gain leverage over the EU. Last year, 96 percent of German LNG imports came from the U.S, according to the federal government. | Pool photo by Lars-Josef Klemmer/EPA That’s why Merz and his delegation are also seeking closer ties to Qatar, one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of natural gas as well as the United Arab Emirates, another major LNG producer. Last week, the EU’s energy chief, Dan Jørgensen, said the bloc would step up efforts to to reduce it’s dependence on U.S. LNG., including by dealing more with Qatar. One EU diplomat criticised Merz for seeking such cooperation on a national level. Germany is going “all in on gas power, of course, but I can’t see why Merz would be running errands on the EU’s behalf,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘AUTHORITARIAN STRONGMEN’ Merz will also be looking to attract more foreign investment and deepen trade ties with the Gulf states as part of a wider strategy of forging news alliances with “middle powers” globally and reduce dependence on U.S. and Chinese markets. The EU initiated trade talks with the United Arab Emirates last spring. Gulf states like Saudi Arabia also have their own concerns about dependencies on the U.S., particularly in the area of arms purchases. Germany’s growing defense industry is increasingly seen as promising partner, particularly following Berlin’s loosening of arms export restrictions. “For our partners in the region, cooperation in the defense industry will certainly also be an important topic,” a senior government official with knowledge of the trip said.  But critics point out that leaders of autocracies criticized for human rights abuses don’t make for viable partners on energy, trade and defense. Last week, the EU’s energy chief, Dan Jørgensen, said the bloc would step up efforts to to reduce it’s dependence on U.S. LNG., including by dealing more with Qatar. | Jose Sena Goulao/EPA “It’s not an ideal solution,” said Loyle Campbell, an expert on climate and energy policy for the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Rather than having high dependence on American LNG, you’d go shake hands with semi-dictators or authoritarian strongmen to try and reduce your risk to the bigger elephant in the room.” Merz, however, may not see a moral contradiction. Europe can’t maintain its strength and values in the new era of great powers, he argues, without a heavy dollop of Realpolitik. “We will only be able to implement our ideas in the world, at least in part, if we ourselves learn to speak the language of power politics,” Merz recently said. Ben Munster contributed to this report.

French energy giant TotalEnergies announced Thursday that it is restarting its natural gas project in Mozambique, after a massacre at the site led to the company being accused of complicity in war crimes in November. “I am delighted to announce the full restart of the Mozambique LNG project … The force majeure is over,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said at a relaunch ceremony attended by Mozambican President Daniel Chapo. The project, billed as Africa’s largest liquefied natural gas development, was suspended in 2021 in the wake of a deadly insurgent attack. A 2024 POLITICO investigation revealed that Mozambican soldiers based inside TotalEnergies’ concession just south of the Tanzanian border, subsequently brutalized, starved, suffocated, executed or disappeared around 200 men in its gatehouse from June to September 2021. In December 2025, the British and Dutch governments withdrew some $2.2 billion in support for the project, with the Dutch releasing a report that corroborated many elements of the POLITICO investigation.  TotalEnergies has denied the allegations, saying its own “extensive research” into the allegations has “not identified any information nor evidence that would corroborate the allegations of severe abuses and torture.” The Mozambican government has also rejected claims that its forces committed war crimes. The revelations nonetheless prompted scrutiny from French lawmakers and criticism of TotalEnergies’ security arrangements in conflict zones. The Mozambique site has been plagued by an Islamist insurgency. “Companies and their executives are not neutral actors when they operate in conflict zones,” said Clara Gonzales of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. “If they enable or fuel crimes, they might be complicit and should be held accountable.” Speaking Thursday in Mozambique, Pouyanné said activity would now accelerate. “You will see a massive ramp-up in activity in coming months … a first offshore vessel has already been mobilized,” he said. According to a statement by the company, construction has resumed both onshore and offshore at the site, with around 4,000 workers currently mobilized. The project is roughly 40 percent complete, with the first LNG production expected in 2029. TotalEnergies holds a 26.5 percent stake in the Mozambique LNG consortium. A relaunch clears the way for billions of dollars in gas exports.

BRUSSELS — The European Union will step up efforts to diversify away from American liquefied natural gas following U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland, EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen said Wednesday. Calling the events of recent week a “clear wake-up call,” Jørgensen said growing geopolitical instability — from Russia’s war in Ukraine to rising tensions with Washington — means the EU can no longer assume energy ties are immune from security shocks. “These are very turbulent times,” Jørgensen told journalists at a briefing in Brussels. “What has made the situation more serious and complex is the strained relationship to the U.S. and the fact that we have an American president that does not exclude using force against Greenland,” he said. The U.S. already supplies more than a quarter of the EU’s gas, up from just 5 percent five years ago, with dependence set to rise further as a total ban on Russian gas takes effect. But Jørgensen said the Commission is now actively seeking alternative suppliers to the U.S. and plans to deepen energy ties with a range of countries in the coming months, including Canada, Qatar and Algeria. “Canada for sure, Qatar, North African countries,” he said, adding that Brussels is also working to secure non-Russian sources of nuclear fuel for member countries that still rely on Moscow. While stressing that Brussels does not want a trade war with Washington, Jørgensen acknowledged mounting concern inside the EU that it risks “replacing one dependency with another” after rapidly pivoting from Russian gas to U.S. LNG following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “It has never been our policy to start trading less with the U.S., and we don’t want trade conflicts,” he said. “But it is also clear that geopolitical turmoil … has been a wake-up call. We have to be able to take care of ourselves.” The commissioner said he had not yet spoken with his U.S. counterpart since Trump’s remarks on Greenland, and said the EU has not set a formal threshold for how much U.S. LNG would be considered too much. For now, American gas remains “essential” to replace Russian supplies, he said.

Europe has a chance Monday to flex its independence from the United States by embracing the energy technology that President Donald Trump hates the most. After a fortnight spent staring into the abyss of conflict with America, ministers from across the continent will meet in Hamburg to agree to massively boost the North Sea’s production of wind energy. The Hamburg Declaration — to be signed by Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Norway — will pledge to build 100 gigawatts of joint offshore wind projects. That’s more than the current total electricity generation capacity of the U.K. The summit has taken on new meaning since Trump’s attempts to coerce his NATO allies to hand over Greenland pushed the transatlantic alliance to — perhaps beyond —breaking point. “Homegrown clean power,” U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen wrote in POLITICO on Monday, offers an alternative to the EU’s deepening reliance on imported liquefied natural gas, much of which now comes from the U.S. “Relying so heavily on fossil fuels, whether they come from Russia or anywhere else, cannot give us the energy security and prosperity we need. It leaves us incredibly vulnerable to the volatility of international markets and pressure from external actors,” they said. Harnessing the North Sea’s gusty winds requires political cooperation that bridges national differences, the Brexit divide and political backlash to the expansion of renewables. While the offshore industry in the U.K. has recently seen strong interest, countries such as Germany and France are struggling to get companies to bid for new projects. And clean energy boosterism cannot mask the fact that gas, while slowly declining, is still almost one quarter of Europe’s energy supply and central to Europe’s heavy industry. Nor are all European countries and companies convinced there is any need to stop the boats pouring in from Texas. Trump knows he has Europe over a barrel. Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he derided wind turbines and the Europeans that install them as “losers.” His self-interest was barely veiled. The U.S. is the world’s biggest exporter of LNG and since the EU began shutting off Russian pipeline gas, the bloc’s imports from the U.S. have risen fourfold, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a non-profit climate group. Trump’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, boasted in Davos that U.S. exports had been able to “displace most all of the Russian gas” and foresaw “robust energy trade” going forward; trade that would be, “in the short run … dominated by exports from the United States into Europe.” He called for the EU to remove “barriers” to the new era of transatlantic gas exports, namechecking Europe’s carbon border tax and its corporate environmental regulations. The U.S., he said, is “working with our colleagues here in Europe to remove those barriers.” U.S. gas was celebrated by European officials as key part of their strategy for ditching Russian energy, a savior from across the seas — alongside, of course, the growing the use of renewables like wind and solar. But the growing reliance has taken on an entirely new geopolitical significance under Trump. “The big weakness was and is that fossil fuel supply was moving from one unreliable supply source (Russia) to a set of other potentially unreliable supply sources and that over-dependency on any one of them risked a repeat of previous problems,” said a European Commission official involved in the EU’s efforts to cut dependence on Russian gas, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I just didn’t think we’d have to worry about the U.S. — that was before Trump,” they added. The North Sea summit was first set up in 2022 as an antidote to Russian energy dependence. Its third edition will be overshadowed by fears — voiced by energy analysts, if not necessarily by some European leaders still eager to appease Trump — that the U.S. could weaponize gas in the way Vladimir Putin did against the Europeans before and after his invasion of Ukraine. This year several heads of state, energy ministers as well as the biggest industry players are expected to attend, the German hosts said. The goal is to strengthen the cooperation between neighboring states along the North Sea. Three declarations are set to be signed, according to German government officials familiar with the matter. The heads of states will sign the Hamburg Declaration pledging close cooperation and united efforts to secure critical infrastructure. The energy ministers will also sign their own declaration focusing on the necessary grid infrastructure for offshore wind parks including financing measures and accelerating planning measures. And lastly there will be the Joint Offshore Wind Investment Pact for the North Sea, signed by the energy ministers and key industry players. Both sides are promising to do everything in their power to bring offshore wind back on track. “This is a great opportunity to remind us why the transformation of the energy system matters,” Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s Executive Vice President told POLITICO after Trump’s attack on green energy in Davos. Renewable sources of energy “mean freedom, lower dependence and vulnerabilities.” CAN’T STOP GUZZLING   While pivoting to clean power is an obvious priority, “you cannot dream away the existing dependence on oil and gas imports,” said Thijs Van de Graaf, a specialist in the geopolitics of energy at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies. The Commission has limited power to dictate where companies obtain their LNG supplies, and the dizzying pace of growth in purchases of the U.S. product will be difficult to reverse. “Unilateral action from the EU to limit its purchases is … unlikely,” argued Jack Reid, a lead economist at economic advisory firm Oxford Economics in a note published last week. He pointed out that for all the EU’s efforts to diversify, Russia remains the bloc’s second largest supplier of LNG. On top of that, the importers themselves are hesitant to curb such a roaring trade. POLITICO asked several German companies and received a range of responses. Some foresaw no change in the U.S. trade, while others, including Uniper, said flexibility may be needed. “This is not a relationship we are stepping back from, on the contrary, we are deepening cooperation with U.S. partners at pace,” said Alexandros Exarchou, the CEO of Atlantic See, a Greek LNG import venture that recently struck a 20-year deal with U.S. firm Venture Global to import half a million tons of LNG annually. Others have more pressing energy challenges to address. For Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, reassessing the U.S. trade relationship is unthinkable as war with Russia rages on. “We have no plans to reduce our engagement with U.S. suppliers,” James O’Brien, the head of trading at DTEK’s trading unit, D.Trading, told POLITICO. “In fact, we are actively seeking to expand our volumes to cover the critical supply gap in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe from 2026/27.” The U.S. LNG market remains “the most liquid and flexible in the world,” he said, adding that for Ukraine, U.S. LNG “is not a risk, it is a lifeline.” Many European officials “are still living that old liberal world,” said Van de Graaf, and expect a return to normalcy and stability in EU-U.S. trade. “That ideological position is no longer tenable in light of all of what is transpiring.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Davos rückt in den Mittelpunkt der Weltpolitik. Zum Start des World Economic Forum stellt sich die zentrale Frage, wie geschlossen EU, NATO und G7 auf Donald Trump reagieren und welche geopolitischen Weichen in den kommenden Tagen in der Schweiz gestellt werden. Gordon Repinski über ein Forum, das von Trump, Grönland, Zoll-Drohungen und der Zukunft des transatlantischen Verhältnis geprägt wird. In Deutschland rückt derweil auch wegen Trump die Energiepolitik in den Fokus. Die deutschen Gasspeicher sind so leer wie selten zu Jahresbeginn. Was politisch gewollt war, könnte sich mittelfristig als Risiko erweisen. Im Gespräch mit Josh Groeneveld vom POLITICO Pro-Newsletter “Energie & Klima am Morgen” geht es um die Ursachen der niedrigen Füllstände, um Marktmechanismen, LNG-Abhängigkeiten von den USA und wie verwundbar Europa in einer angespannten geopolitischen Lage tatsächlich ist. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht der CDU-Spitzenkandidat für die Landtagswahl in Rheinland-Pfalz, Gordon Schnieder, über Wirtschaftspolitik, Energiepreise und die Erwartungen an Friedrich Merz. Es geht um Vertrauen, Investitionen und Steuerpolitik. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 information@axelspringer.de Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer usually goes out of his way not to annoy Donald Trump. So he better hope the windmill-hating U.S. president doesn’t notice what the U.K. just did. In a fillip for the global offshore wind industry, Starmer’s government on Wednesday announced its biggest-ever down payment on the technology. It agreed to price guarantees, funded by billpayers to the tune of up to £1.8 billion (€2.08 billion) a year, for eight major projects in England, Scotland and Wales. The schemes have the capacity to generate 8.4 gigawatts of electricity, the U.K. energy department said — enough to power 12 million homes. It represented the biggest “wind auction in Europe to date,” said industry group WindEurope. It’s also an energy strategy that could have been tailor-made to rankle Trump. The U.S. president has repeatedly expressed a profound loathing for wind turbines and has tried to use his powers to halt construction on projects already underway in the U.S. — sending shockwaves across the global industry. Even when appearing alongside Starmer at press conferences, Trump has been unable to hide his disgust at the very sight of windmills. “You are paying in Scotland and in the U.K. … to have these ugly monsters all over the place,” he said, sitting next to Starmer during a visit to his Turnberry golf course last year. The spinning blades, Trump complained, would “kill all your birds.” At the time, the prime minister explained meekly that the U.K. was seeking a “mix” of energy sources. But this week’s investments speak far louder about his government’s priorities. The U.K.’s strategy — part of a plan to run the British power grid on 95 percent clean electricity by 2030 — is a clear signal that for all Starmer’s attempts to appease Trump, the U.K. will not heed Washington’s assertions that fossil fuels are the only way to deliver affordable bills and secure supply. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Starmer’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, a former leader of the Labour party. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. | Pool photo by Justin Tallis via Getty Images While not mentioning Trump or the U.S., he said the U.K. wanted to “stand on our two feet” and not depend on “markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.” WIND VS. GAS The goal of the U.K.’s offshore wind drive is to reduce reliance on gas for electricity generation. One of the most gas-dependent countries in Europe, the U.K. was hit hard in 2022 by the regional gas price spike that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government ended up spending tens of billions of pounds to pay a portion of every household energy bill in the country to fend off widespread hardship. It’s a scenario that Miliband and Starmer want to avoid in future by focusing on producing electricity from domestic sources like offshore wind that are not subject to the ups and downs of global fossil fuel markets. Trump, by contrast, wants to keep Europe hooked on gas — specifically, American gas. The U.S. National Security Strategy, updated late last year, states Trump’s desire to use American fossil fuel exports to “project power.” Trump has already strong-armed the European Union into committing to buy $750 billion worth of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a quid pro quo for tariff relief. No one in Starmer’s government explicitly named Trump or the U.S. on Wednesday. But Chris Stark, a senior official in Miliband’s energy department tasked with delivering the 2030 goal, noted that “every megawatt of offshore wind that we’re bringing on is a few more metric tons of LNG that we don’t need to import.” The U.K.’s investment in offshore wind also provides welcome relief to a global industry that has been seriously shaken both by soaring inflation and interest rates — and more recently by a Trump-inspired backlash against net zero and clean energy. “It’s a relief for the offshore sector … It’s a relief generally, that the U.K. government is able to lean into very large positive investment stories in U.K. infrastructure,” said Tom Glover, U.K. country chair of the German energy firm RWE, which was the biggest winner in the latest offshore wind investment, securing contracts for 6.9 gigawatts of capacity. A second energy industry figure, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the U.K.’s plans were a “great signal for the global offshore wind sector” after a difficult few years — “not least the stuff in the U.S.” The other big winner was British firm SSE, which has plans to build one of the world’s largest-ever offshore wind projects, Berwick Bank — off the coast of Donald Trump’s beloved Scotland.

BRUSSELS — On the same day world leaders arrived at the COP30 summit in Brazil to push for more action on climate change, Greece announced it will start drilling for fossil fuels in the Mediterranean Sea — with U.S. help. Under the deal, America’s biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, will explore for natural gas in waters northwest of the picturesque island of Corfu, alongside Greece’s Energean and HELLENiQ ENERGY. It’s the first time in more than four decades that Greece has opened its waters for gas exploration — and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming it as a victory in its push to derail climate action and boost the global dominance of the U.S. fossil fuel industry. It comes three weeks after the U.S. successfully halted a global deal to put a carbon tax on shipping, with the support of Greece. “There is no energy transition, there is just energy addition,” said U.S. Interior Secretary and energy czar Doug Burgum, who was present at the signing ceremony in Athens on Thursday, alongside U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the new U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle. “Greece is taking its own natural resources, and we are working all together toward energy abundance,” Burgum added, describing Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as a leader who “bucks the trend.” Only a few hours later, U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterrez made an impassioned plea for countries to stop exploring for coal, oil and gas. “I’ve consistently advocated against more coal plants and fossil fuel exploration and expansion,” he said at a COP30 leaders’ summit in Belém, Brazil. Donald Trump was not among the many world leaders present. NOT LISTENING “America is back and drilling in the Ionian Sea,” said Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador, at the Athens ceremony. Drilling for natural gas — a fossil fuel that is a major contributor to global warming — is expected to start late next year, or early 2027. Greece’s Minister of Environment and Energy, Stavros Papastavrou, hailed the agreement as a “historic signing” that ends a 40-year hiatus in exploration. Last month, Greece and Cyprus — both major maritime countries — were the only two EU countries that voted to halt action for a year on a historic effort to tax climate pollution from shipping. Greece claimed its decision had nothing to do with U.S. pressure, which several people familiar with the situation said included threats to negotiators. Thursday’s ceremony took place on the sidelines of the sixth Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) conference, organized in Athens by the U.S. and Greek governments, along with the Atlantic Council. Greece aims to showcase its importance as an entry point for American liquefied natural gas (LNG), bolstering Europe’s independence from Russian gas. LNG from Greece’s Revithoussa terminal is set to reach Ukraine this winter through the newly activated “Vertical Corridor,” an energy route linking Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped to capitalize on his warming relations with U.S. President Donald Trump to secure a supply of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles — weapons Kyiv believes could be a game-changer and deliver a decisive blow to the Kremlin’s war economy. Fresh off successfully brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, surely Trump would have the appetite to give Ukraine what it needs to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into getting serious about negotiations. But that isn’t what happened. Zelenskyy’s meeting in the White House was perfectly cordial — Trump used that word himself to characterize their encounter. There was no frostiness, and no return to the nastiness of last February’s now infamous Oval Office brawl. Zelenskyy learned his lesson thoroughly on that score and now knows deference is obligatory when approaching “daddy” Trump. The meeting was, however, fluffed, mainly because Ukraine was in too much of a hurry. “It wasn’t a bad meeting, just a victim of poor timing and inflated expectations,” said one Republican foreign-policy insider who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. But it could have been much more productive if Zelenskyy had readjusted his thinking and rejigged his agenda after the lengthy phone call Trump had with Putin the day before. During that two-and-a-half hour call, Trump teased Putin with the prospects of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks: “I did actually say, would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition? I did say that,” the U.S. president told reporters. “He didn’t like the idea.” And the outcome was an agreement to meet at another summit — this time in Budapest — with Trump once again seemingly persuaded that Putin might be ready to end the war. The Ukrainian leader doesn’t believe “Putin is ready just to finish this war,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview Sunday. Nonetheless, Putin’s call should have prompted Zelenskyy and his team to recalibrate, dial down their expectations and, above all, downgrade their push for Cruise missiles, said the insider. “There was no way Trump was going to agree to Tomahawk acquisitions ahead of his meeting with Putin in Budapest.” The Ukrainian leader doesn’t believe “Putin is ready just to finish this war,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” | Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images But Ukraine ignored the counsel of its Republican friends in Washington — many of whom are skeptical Trump will agree to give Ukraine Tomahawks under any circumstances, for fear of escalation and drawing the U.S. deeper into the war. That’s not even considering the Pentagon’s worries about the U.S.’s own stockpiles, which Trump himself mentioned to reporters on Friday. By failing to drop the Tomahawk request, Ukraine squandered an opportunity to focus on a slew of other crucial items — foremost among them, air-to-air missiles for their F-16 and MiG warplanes and surface-to-air interceptor missiles for Patriot air-defense systems. Both are needed to shoot down drones and ballistic missiles, and Ukraine is desperately short of them because of the record airstrikes Russia is now mounting. The focus on Tomahawks also distracted from other key asks, such as getting Trump’s approval for the use of immobilized Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine’s defense. For his part, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is in favor of this proposal. The U.S. only holds $7 billion in Russian assets, but the EU’s big three in the G7 — Germany, France and Italy — want Japan and America actively involved, as they worry that tapping into the €140 billion in Russian assets held in Europe could undermine the euro’s global credibility. If Washington and Tokyo were to take similar action, their fears would be allayed. There was also only limited progress on discussions about Ukraine importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S., now that Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s natural gas infrastructure have increased in both intensity and frequency. So far, Ukraine’s state oil and gas firm Naftogaz has bought around 0.5 billion cubic meters of U.S. LNG, but more will be needed if the country is to endure the winter. And earlier this month, Ukrainian Minister of Energy Svitlana Hrynchuk said Kyiv was aiming to increase its overall gas imports by 30 percent. Along these lines, the country’s Minister of Economy Oleksii Sobolev noted last week that Ukraine was “considering mechanisms to finance the purchase of American LNG and compressor equipment.” But according to an official from America’s export credit agency the Export-Import Bank, who asked to remain anonymous as they’re not authorized to speak with the media, these discussions are now bogged down because Ukraine is objecting to the rather restrictive loan terms being offered. And the bank has only limited legal maneuver to amend the terms. In fact, the huge delegation of Ukrainian ministers and officials — including Zelenskyy’s powerful Chief-of-Staff Andriy Yermak and Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko — sent to Washington ahead of Friday’s White House meeting struck out across the board, failing to finalize several major agreements involving both the U.S. government and the private sector.  “The idea was that there would be massive things readied, including some agreements with major U.S. defense companies and energy players, all to be inked during the White House meeting,” said the Republican insider. But in the end, nothing was oven-ready. “Unfortunately, nothing really concrete was agreed during the entire week,” another Republican foreign-policy adviser concurred. He also said the misguided focus on Tomahawks was only part of the problem — the other was the timing of Zelenskyy’s visit and the overall Ukrainian lobbying push in Washington. The focus on Tomahawks distracted from other key asks. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images “We had urged them to delay,” he said. It was important that Svyrydenko and the economy officials were in Washington because of the annual IMF and World Bank meetings, but the rest of the lobbying effort should have been delayed for a week or so. And certainly, Zelenskyy’s offer of exchanging Ukrainian drone technology for Tomahawks was far too premature. For one, the Trump administration was still very much focused on the Middle East. Plus, with the government shutdown and the blame game over the budgetary battle between Democrats and Republicans, there wasn’t enough oxygen for Ukraine. In their defense, the adviser added, there’s rising alarm in Kyiv about how Ukraine will make it through this winter — likely the worst of the war so far. Zelenskyy hinted at this worry on Sunday, telling NBC that because Russia isn’t winning on the battlefield, it’s escalating airstrikes on infrastructure. “He’s using missiles and drones on our — he wants disaster — energy disaster during this winter by attacking us, each day [with] 500 Iranian drones and 20-30 missiles,” he said. And the Republican adviser agrees: “There’s a real danger is that Ukraine is headed for an energy catastrophe if the Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure persist.”

BRUSSELS — A coalition of European leaders has convinced U.S. President Donald Trump that Russia is not interested in ending its war in Ukraine and must be forced to the negotiating table. Now they have to persuade an unpredictable White House to agree on how to make that happen. A flurry of diplomatic visits over the past week has seen top officials on both sides of the Atlantic meet to talk about new financial restrictions and plans to cut off the flow of Russian oil and gas. A high-level EU technical team was even dispatched to Washington to work on the details of the proposals, whose core aims enjoy mutual agreement, officials and diplomats told POLITICO.  “Trump is finally on our side. The question now is how do you reconcile the two approaches?” said one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.   While the bloc is putting the finishing touches on a new package of sanctions — the 19th to be imposed on Russia since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — negotiators say privately that the most effective action needs to be taken in partnership with the Americans.  And although there is a broad consensus on the need to pressure Putin to come to the table, the Trump administration prefers to use trade tools like tariffs to drain the Kremlin’s war chest while the EU pushes for formal sanctions on the businesses and financial institutions that deal with Moscow.  A second EU diplomat said they expected “heated discussions” with the U.S. on how to actually go about hitting Russia.  RED LINES The U.S. president told EU officials this week that he wanted to impose a 100 percent tariff on India and China for buying Russian energy, provided Brussels follows suit. That, however, is an economic and political impossibility for the EU.   Such a move would go against the EU’s core principles, particularly after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated her opposition to tariffs, insisting that “tariffs are taxes” on domestic consumers. Slapping tariffs on India, with whom Brussels is nearing a major trade deal, and on China, to which its open economy is heavily exposed, would amount to colossal acts of self-harm.  “We don’t do tariffs. We are a trading bloc. We are exporters. Exports are the engine of the EU economy. This is our DNA,” said Agathe Demarais, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.   Such a move would go against the EU’s core principles, particularly after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated her opposition to tariffs, insisting that “tariffs are taxes” on domestic consumers. | Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images “This is simply a way for the Trump administration to make an unrealistic demand from partners,” Demarais added. “The partners will say no, because there is no way on earth that the EU is going to impose tariffs, especially at that level, on China and India, and then say, OK, so our partners refuse to go forward, and so we cannot move forward.”   A recent discussion paper floated by the Danish presidency of the Council of the EU, seen by POLITICO, explored whether capitals would be open to imposing tariffs on Moscow as part of the bloc’s 19th sanctions package. That idea, according to several diplomats briefed on the talks, won little traction among ministers when it was discussed last month.   PUMP FOR TRUMP  The U.S. president has also called on Europe to stop buying Russian fossil fuels — the Kremlin uses the proceeds to pay for its tanks and troops — providing helpful leverage to EU leaders already pushing for a total end to imports from the country.  Energy Secretary Chris Wright landed in Brussels for meetings on Thursday, where he hoped to cement the details of an agreement struck between Trump and von der Leyen for the bloc to buy an additional $750 billion worth of American gas, oil and nuclear fuel.  “These are ambitious energy import targets,” Wright told reporters on a conference call. “Certainly the U.S. can supply that, but that’s a framework that’s expecting energy trade to grow significantly from our country … the U.S.’s liquefied natural gas exports growing to displace the rest of Russian natural gas that is still imported into Europe.”  At a press conference following the meeting with his American counterpart, Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said he intended to accelerate the bloc’s commitment to end all imports of Russian natural gas by the end of 2027 — potentially bringing the deadline forward if it can be agreed as part of a compromise with member countries.  “I have put forward a proposal to ban the import of Russian gas,” he said. “For that to … happen in a way that doesn’t lead to increases in prices and security of supply problems in Europe, we need help from our American friends. We need to import more LNG from the U.S.” Aside from being a major commercial opportunity for the U.S., the proposal also gives Brussels a stronger hand in dealing with Kremlin-friendly countries like Hungary and Slovakia, which have been holding out against the plans to sever ties with Russia.

BERLIN — Canadian liquefied natural gas will be ready to flow to Europe by 2032, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told POLITICO. The idea is to build a pipeline that funnels LNG from the west coast of Canada to a port on the east coast, like the port of Churchill. From there, it would be shipped to Europe from a terminal that has yet to be constructed. “I think you’re probably talking about five to seven years,” said Hodgson in an interview in Berlin on Wednesday after talks with four LNG suppliers and multiple German companies. The idea was initially floated back in 2022 when Germany’s then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz tried to persuade Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to find a way to ship LNG to Europe to help wean the continent off Russian oil. But the project floundered due to a lack of infrastructure, namely a pipeline to bring the LNG some 8,000 kilometers from east to west. Now, amid U.S President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have hit both Germany and Canada hard, both countries are scrambling to deepen ties in areas such as defense, critical minerals and energy. Hodgson took the opportunity to throw shade across the border, stating that Canada is keen to find people who “share our views and share our values” and increase trading with them. “In a perfect world, we would maintain our relationships with the U.S. We would maintain openness, but we’re going to do what’s right for us, which is make sure we trade more with like-minded countries like Germany.” Trump has in the past months repeatedly threatened his northern neighbor’s sovereignty in a string of comments about annexing Canada as the U.S.’s “51st state.” Both countries have also been at odds over trade, although Prime Minister Mark Carney has recently changed course by scrapping some retaliatory tariffs. Hodgson said he was surprised by the long-term demand for LNG — typically seen as climate-unfriendly and a “transition fuel” — by German industry, but attributed this to increased demand, including from artificial intelligence. “They believe that there will be more LNG required and for longer as a transition fuel,” he added. Berlin also wants to shift its industry away from reliance on Russia and China. While no official announcement has been made, Carney on Tuesday said Ottawa is two weeks away from announcing major investments, including “a new port, effectively,” on Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba. He said it would open up “enormous” opportunities to ship LNG and critical minerals from Canada’s east coast. Mike Blanchfield contributed to this report from Ottawa.