US influence on EU energy and climate decisions

The US and Israel began attacking Iran on 28 February 2026, and the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG normally passes, has been effectively closed. Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex knocked out about 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, which QatarEnergy’s chief said will take three to five years to repair. European gas prices jumped about 25% the day of the strikes.

That left the EU, which has also committed to ending Russian fuel imports, looking for supply. The United States was ready to fill the gap.

In 2025, the EU imported about 106 million tonnes of LNG, of which the US supplied 60 million tonnes. S&P Global notes that this made 2025 the first year on record in which the EU sourced more than half of its LNG from a single country. And in August that year, upon the signing of the US-EU trade deal, the European Commission’s own energy page recorded an expected offtake of US LNG, oil and nuclear products at $750 billion through 2028.

The more Europe depends on one supplier, the more leverage that supplier has. And the supplier is making its demands quite clear in some key legislative files.

The methane regulation would from 1 January 2027 require foreign oil and gas suppliers to monitor and report methane emissions. It is the clearest case of pressure from Washington and the US industry, and it has been building for two years.

• October 2024: The US Department of Energy and EPA asked the EU to start an “equivalence determination” so US gas could meet the rules. Meanwhile, the Trump administration was delaying and weakening US methane regulations.
• March 2025: Euronews reported a “kickoff call” on the regulation between the Commission’s energy directorate, ExxonMobil, Venture Global, Excelerate Energy, the US Chamber of Commerce and senior Commission officials. Euronews also reported that the Commission failed to meet transparency rules in these talks.
• September 2025: Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum urged Europe to rethink the rules. Wright has called them “regulatory overreach”.
• March 2026: US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder warned of “a very severe energy crisis” unless Europe cut regulatory requirements, citing the Qatar supply shock.
• June 2026: Wright and Qatar’s energy minister sent a joint letter warning that the rules would not be feasible under 2027 LNG contracts. Politico’s E&E News reported that a US oil executive turned to the US administration for support in lobbying EU officials to delay the methane rules. It also reported that US diplomats met several times with Austria’s energy secretary to explain supply risks, and that 17 member states, including Germany, then argued for a delay.
• July 2026: The Commission recommended that member states suspend penalties for non-compliance for 2027 to 2029. Puzder called the rules “a direct threat” to European energy security.
• September 2026: Emmanuel Macron called for a one-year delay. On 29 September Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said he had instructed his services to look at postponing the import provisions, as EU Perspectives reported. The same report notes the US Department of Energy has called the regulation a “non-tariff trade barrier”.
• 14 October 2026: The Commission proposed a one-year delay “after pressure from governments including France and the United States”, per Reuters. EU countries and the Parliament must still approve it, and Czechia and Italy want three years.

On 17 July 2026, the European Commission proposed applying a carbon price to emissions from international flights departing Europe and landing up to 5,000 km away, measured from a point in central Europe. That threshold excludes direct flights to the US, and, according to Reuters, some EU officials said it was designed to avoid tension with the Trump administration. Green Air News reports the proposal still leaves 47% of European aviation emissions exempt.

It wasn’t enough. A US Department of Transportation spokesperson said the US remained “deeply concerned” and would take “appropriate steps as needed”, which Carbon Herald read as a warning of retaliation.

There is a precedent. In 2012, the EU suspended its attempt to cover foreign airlines after the US Congress passed a law shielding US carriers from the scheme. The proposal is now with the Parliament and Council.

The best-documented case of US pressure influencing EU legislation is around the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

• Before the European Commission’s Omnibus simplification proposal, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods allegedly lobbied President Trump on using the trade talks against the due diligence law, according to a SOMO investigation based on leaked documents. SOMO also reports Exxon threatened not to spend a $20 billion EU investment package if the CSDDD wasn’t withdrawn or revised.
• The US-EU deal then committed the EU to propose changes to the directive; the American Petroleum Institute publicly thanked the administration for “standing up” against it.
• In December 2025, US Ambassador Puzder called the CSDDD “economic suicide” for Europe. His Financial Times op-ed of 1 December – shared on social media by President Trump – argued Europe should repeal the directive because it needs reliable fossil fuels from allies like the US.
• The result, which entered into force on 18 March 2026: CSDDD now covers only companies with more than 5,000 employees and €1.5 billion turnover, climate transition plan obligations were deleted, the EU-wide civil liability regime was eliminated, and maximum fines fell from 5% to 3% of turnover. The CSRD now applies to around 90% fewer companies.
• It didn’t stop there. In August 2026 the US Mission to the EU warned it would take “any actions necessary” unless the EU scaled the laws back further, saying the December 2025 reforms “failed to fully address” US concerns. It asked the EU to significantly limit the laws’ application to US businesses and bar penalties on them.

While companies are the ones who sign import contracts, some of the European buyers are state-owned. Recent examples:

• In June 2026, Greece’s Atlantic-SEE doubled its contract with Venture Global to at least 1 million tonnes of LNG a year for 20 years from 2030, to be distributed across Central and Eastern Europe. Venture Global also holds about 25% of capacity at Greece’s Alexandroupolis terminal.
• In 2023, German state-owned SEFE signed a 20-year deal with Venture Global for 2.25 million tonnes a year. It predates the Iran war, but it shows how long these commitments run.

A November 2025 SEE energy brief acknowledges that long-term reliance on US LNG carries significant economic and environmental risk, and the German Marshall Fund says a handful of new 20-year contracts could deliver the political headlines the trade deal needs.

Apart from the above examples of direct US pressure on EU energy and climate policy, the decisions of EU politicians could benefit the US by keeping the bloc reliant on fossil fuel imports for longer. The US is now the EU’s largest supplier of fossil fuels, and one analysis suggests it could supply up to 80% of the EU’s LNG imports by 2030.

An example of how the EU is slowing down its transition away from fossil fuels is the debate around the bloc’s carbon market, the EU ETS. Following pressure from member states, the European Commission has proposed “slamming brakes” on the ETS, a cornerstone of EU climate and energy policy that covers 40% of EU greenhouse gas emissions.