President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have preferred his Democratic opponent’s energy policy to the one the Trump administration will implement.
“We’re going to be exporting energy – he doesn’t want that,” Trump said in an interview with CNB. The president supports exporting natural gas to Europe, while Trump’s opponent during the presidential election, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, campaigned against the fossil fuel industry.
“He would like Hillary where she wants to have windmills,” Trump added. “He would much rather have that because energy prices would go up and Russia as you know relies very much on energy.”
The president told world leaders in Poland earlier this month that the U.S. wants to make it easier for companies to ship natural gas products to Eastern Europe. The goal is to break up Russia’s energy monopolization in Europe, according to White House officials.
Trump attended a summit in July involving countries surrounding the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas before he met the Group of 20 leading economies in Germany. He also met Putin for the first time during the G-20 meeting.
The White House’s position would reduce the impact of Russia using energy as a weapon against European countries that stray from Putin’s bidding, James Jones, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, told reporters on July 5.
Clinton had been aggressive in touting how the U.S.’s oil and natural gas can be used as a geopolitical tool against other countries, but shifted against fossil fuels during the presidential election to placate environmentalists. She might have tact back to a generally pro-natural gas position, but not without hearing howls of indignation from her left-wing flanks.
Trump has no such problems, because many of his supporters support the president’s pro-fossil fuel position. He also campaigned during the presidential election to help communities that rely on coal and natural gas.
Etching out an antagonistic position against Russia could also help defray heat from those who believe Trump colluded with Putin to take out Clinton’s candidacy.
Investigations into intelligence findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential race could complicate the White House’s policy. Still, many Republicans who want Trump to hold a hardline against Russia are generally supportive of the president’s position.
Russia’s access to pipelines throughout Europe and the country’s relatively cheap natural gas could stymie Trump’s plans, though, especially if world leaders believe Trump is simply trying to promote U.S. energy interests over those of Europe. Much of the discrepancy in pricing between Russian and American gas stems from transportation costs associated with bringing U.S. gas to Europe.
The Trump administration has attempted to drive up Russia’s advantages. Republican lawmakers and Trump have come out aggressively against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a nearly $10 billion gas line linking parts of Europe to Russia. It’s expected to shuttle nearly 55 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia to Germany.
German officials pushed back against Trump’s campaign to kill the massive gas project.
Germany is heavily dependent on Russia for its gas and energy supply, using Russian gas as baseload energy to stabilize the less reliable green energy industry. Some evidence also shows that Germany’s reliance on green energy subsidies has caused damage to the country’s electrical grids.
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