reported\u00a0Monday<\/a> 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 per year of U.S. LNG.<\/p>\nWhile there appears to be a focus on energy in these deals, in many of them, it\u2019s not clear exactly what kind of energy will be purchased in what quantities, who will supply it or who will buy it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of still open questions,\u201d said Aaron Bartnick, who served as an economic security official for former President Biden’s White House.<\/p>\n
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.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said part of the issue is that it\u2019s not clear what even counts as \u201cenergy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bartnick, who is now a fellow at Columbia University\u2019s Center on Global Energy Policy, said the deals would be expected to result in the purchase of more U.S. energy \u201cif the terms as outlined, are executed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s a big if.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’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,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s possible they would have already been made with or without a trade deal.<\/p>\n
However, Gillispie noted there “are things that governments can do to more positively influence the competitiveness of U.S. energy supplies in their own markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou 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,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTotal 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,\u201d Mattei-d’Ornano said.<\/p>\n
She indicated at least some of the purchases may have happened anyway, \u201cgiven the pivot away from Russia in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the U.S. energy industry has appeared supportive of the Trump administration\u2019s efforts. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome President Trump\u2019s announcement of new trade frameworks that will expand new export market opportunities and support American energy development,\u201d Rob Jennings, vice president of natural gas markets at the American Petroleum Institute, a major oil and gas\u00a0lobbying organization, said in a statement to The Hill.<\/p>\n
Jennings, however, also called for a faster infrastructure buildout in the U.S., saying, \u201cWe can provide even more of that supply to our allies with more infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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,<\/p>\n
Continue reading <\/use> <\/svg>Trump homes in on energy in trade talks, but specifics are scarce<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1501,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions\/1501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}