U.S. President Donald Trump offered to increase supplies of American energy exports to Berlin but did not pledge additional military support to Ukraine or sanctions on Russia in a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on June 5.
The meeting was Merz’s first visit to the White House since becoming chancellor.
When asked whether Trump would impose additional sanctions on Russia, the president dodged the question by boasting that he “ended Nord Stream 2” and hinting at future energy deals with Germany.
“We have so much oil and gas, you will not be able to buy it all. … I hope we’ll be able to make that part of our trade deal,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Merz.
While Merz spoke of a “duty” to assist Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, Trump did not make any commitments to further military aid for Kyiv. In the same press conference, he compared Russia and Ukraine to fighting children and refused to name a deadline for imposing sanctions on Moscow.
Merz nonetheless praised Trump’s role as a peacemaker between the two nations.
Somehow I don’t feel easy with Europe buying American gas at this point. Trump could simply shut down the gas supply on a whim just like Putin did in 2022, and then we’d have another energy crisis on our hands.
America is an unreliable trading partner.
Instead we should be doing everything in our power to build down our gas and oil dependencies as fast as possible. And in the meantime we should be very picky about who we buy gas from.
