A Bloomberg News article on U.S. President Joe Biden’s order to stop issuing new permits for export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) says that U.S. LNG supplies to Europe are threatened. Europe is cut off from Russian gas, dependent largely on U.S. LNG and Norwegian pipeline gas, and does not have a free-trade agreement with the United States; therefore, it is threatened immediately by still-higher prices, and then of being forced to use more coal for energy, etc. The Washington Times, meanwhile, quoted from a Jan. 17 statement by Eurogas President Didier Holleaux: “In the past two years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe has worked extremely hard to secure price stability of natural gas—with the important contribution of like-minded countries, including the United States. It is essential that the United States stands with Europe, especially at a time of war where we are working together to protect our values and does not deliberately spark a new period of price volatility in Europe caused by policy-driven LNG shortages.”
The idea of “standing with Europe” is laughable—America has stood on European economies, not with them—and the threat could be real, if Biden’s “pause” in LNG export permits were real.
