“We are trying to identify who are the key people in the U.S. administration; you need to understand who can actually deliver — some … may not be what their titles say,” said one of those envoys in March, complaining that key roles in the White House and the State Department responsible for dealing with Europe had remained unfilled weeks after the inauguration.
Complicating the matter further, the diplomat said, the Trump administration preferred to communicate directly with individual EU capitals, even though Brussels plays a pivotal role in trade policy for its 27 members.
“Trump sees the EU as the only thing between him and subjugating individual countries to his will,” the diplomat said. “So the main bridge for us has been national capitals. France, Germany, Italy — they are very well connected and these are the channels we have been forced to use.”
Two officials from EU countries said they had expressed a willingness to buy more American LNG to Washington, but that the U.S. had offered no clarity about how a deal would work or what Europe would get in return.
Fossil fuel fury
In addition to the diplomatic obstacles abroad, there have been challenges back home. Many EU countries are already heavily dependent on American gas, and increasing imports would present more hurdles.
“There is not much more we can do,” outgoing German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said in January, noting that 90 percent of his country’s LNG already came from U.S. sources.