Vienna, Austria – September 15: USA’s Secretary of Energy Chris Wright speaks during the 69th annual International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference on September 15, 2025 in Vienna, Austria. (Photo by Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty images)
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The energy policy Lexicon has grown under the Trump administration. Expect to hear many discussions in the future about a “common sense of energy and climate policy”.
The term seems to have been embraced in particular by energy secretary Chris Wright.
In his September Swing through Europe, which started with a gas conference in Milan, followed by discussions with various European leaders in Brussels, and concluded with a speech to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Wright spoke about an American-European consensus about energy policy. Europe has not registered it.
Very collegial and pleasant
Various participants in the Brussels meetings then spoke with me. One summarized in this way: “It was all very collegial and pleasant. [Wright] said he was there to get a consensus about energy policy. But we have a consensus, another. ‘
Where the European consensus and the embryonic American found a common ground, was on natural gas. On anything but natural gas there was polite but emphatic pushback, I was told.
Wright Grateful wind and solar energy In his meetings, the reflection of President Donald Trump’s aversion reflected to them, but Europeans expressed the dedication to these renewable energy sources. De Twain did not meet each other.
Energy – if Wright was sensitive to the nuances – has joined a list of things that are not as copacting if they were ever over the Atlantic.
On his European visit, however, Wright found an agreement with his main mission: distracting Europe from buying Russian gas to an increased import of American liquid natural gas.
The Europeans are not against more American gas. They welcome it as a blow to Russia.
Fear of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is widespread, as I found on two recent trips to Europe: one to speak during a meeting of the British section of the Association of European Journalists in London, and the other to participate in the annual Monnet Association in Houjarray, France, who looks at the future of Europe. This fear is also fed by a general sense that America Europe no longer has back.
Some countries are actually afraid of threatening Russian invasion.
Gas Talk Welcome
So whatever Wright had to say about gas fell on enthusiastic ears; Although there is much suspicion from the United States and the approval by the Trump government of right-wing parties in Europe.
In Milan, according to a DIY press release, “Wright” emphasized President Trump’s dedication to grow gas exports and how the export of American gas strengthens global stability, lower prices and reliable alternatives to opponents. “
In Brussels, however, Wright was on a little less sturdy terrain because of Trump’s attacks on the economic viability of wind and solar energy.
Although participants in the conversations with Wright were anxious to understand how civil they had been, Wright left a number of corrugated feathers in his wake.
He excited the plans of the United Kingdom for a green transition and did not save the opportunity to attack the Accords of Paris, which he found ‘morally’ wrong and ‘stupid’.
Wright pushed back against offshore wind, of which he said it is oneconomic.
European politicians and energy lovers of both treasures offshore wind and the worldwide leadership of Europe in that sector. They are also strong supporters of the Paris Accords, signed in 2016, which limit the CO2 emissions.
Last year Europe generated 20 percent of its electricity from wind and about 10 percent of the sun.
The US Energy Information Administration says that onshore wind followed by solar energy is the cheapest new source of generation, but there are variables such as location, resources and weather. The EIA says that this is true, even without subsidies from the Biden era, which will be phased out.
Some things that Wright said in Europe raised eyebrows and, outside instructively experienced meetings, hackles. Here there is a: “Climate change for influencing the quality of your life is not incredibly important.” He said that people would not worry about it if it was not for media attention.
Wright also said that warmer, wetter conditions would be good for growing food.
He said that stopping the gas stream from Russian pipelines that bring it in Europe was the ‘hammer’. He said that the United States could double its gas export to Europe in five years.
The European Union is planning to ban the import of gas from Russia in 2027, although it is unclear whether all 27 countries in the EU can meet Deadline.
EU import of gas from Russia has fallen dramatically since the Russian invasion of Ukraine; They fell from around 45 percent in 2021 to around 19 percent in 2024 to 2025.
Last year the United States delivered 45 percent of the EU LNG imports, and they are expected to be considerably higher this year.
It is not entirely certain that Europe wants to be too dependent on American gas. The head of a Brussels think tank asked me: “Why should we exchange one dependence on the other?”
Throughout Europe there is now the ‘Atlantic Divorce’.
When it comes to energy, it is not so much a divorce as an accommodation: we will buy something from your gas, but not your ideas.
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