President Trump is seeking to promote U.S. energy in his trade negotiations, but announcements about agreements so far have been light on details, and actual outcomes are largely mysterious.
Recently, the Trump administration and the European Union announced a trade deal under which the EU will buy “$750 billion in U.S. energy” by 2028.
An EU webpage said that the deal “includes the intention to procure more US liquified natural gas (LNG), oil, and nuclear fuels and cutting-edge technologies and investments over the next three years.”
On Wednesday, the administration announced another deal with South Korea that included the purchase of “$100 Billion Dollars of LNG, or other Energy products” Trump said on social media.
The latest agreements come after one with Japan last month. That deal amounted to $550 billion in Japanese investments in U.S. industries, including energy infrastructure and production, semiconductors and mining.
Reuters reported Monday that the administration also reached a trade deal with Malaysia that included an agreement under which state energy company Petroliam Nasional Berhad will buy $3.4 billion a year of U.S. LNG.
While there appears to be a focus on energy in these deals, in many of them it’s not clear exactly what kind of energy will be purchased in what quantities, who will supply it or who will buy it.
“There are a lot of still open questions,” said Aaron Bartnick, who served as an economic security official in the Biden White House.
Clara Gillispie, a senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “There’s still a lot we don’t know about what these deals look like, including in terms of how ambitious these actually are.”
She said part of the issue is that it’s not clear what even counts as “energy.”
“You have in some of the detail deals references to energy products. Some say energy exports from the U.S. LNG is often referenced as part of a suggestive, but not necessarily all inclusive list.”
Bartnick, who is now a fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said that the deals would be expected to result in the purchase of more U.S. energy “if the terms as outlined, are executed.”
But that’s a big if.
“I’ll be very interested to see how these foreign governments work with the private companies in their respective countries in order to coordinate these investments,” he said.
On the U.S. side as well, decisions are made by private companies, rather than anything run by the state, and in many cases, if deals were economic, it’s possible they would have already been made with or without a trade deal.
However, Gillispie noted that “there are things that governments can do to more positively influence the competitiveness of U.S. energy supplies in their own markets.”
“You could, for example, see governments look at waiving of certain import taxes or other fees that might be levied against energy imports, specific to waiving them in the U.S. case,” she said.
Olympe Mattei-d’Ornano, a European gas analyst at BNEF, said in a statement shared with The Hill that the EU deal in particular may be difficult to actually achieve.
“Total energy imports from the US accounted for less than $80 billion last year vs $250 billion promised. The pledge is not legally binding but could spur a gesture from the EU’s side to provide incentives/guidelines to increase EU buyers’ contracts with US LNG projects,” said Mattei-d’Ornano.
She indicated that at least some of the purchases may have happened anyway, “given the pivot away from Russia in recent years.”
However, the U.S. energy industry has appeared supportive of the Trump administration’s efforts.
“We welcome President Trump’s announcement of new trade frameworks that will expand new export market opportunities and support American energy development,” said Rob Jennings, vice president of natural gas markets at the American Petroleum Institute, a major oil and gas lobbying organization, in a statement to The Hill.
Jennings, however, also called for a faster infrastructure buildout in the U.S., saying “we can provide even more of that supply to our allies with more infrastructure.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
