European countries should stop buying Russian oil and gas if they want Washington to tighten sanctions on Moscow, according to Donald Trump’s energy chief, who said the trade was funding Vladimir Putin’s “war machine”.
Chris Wright, US energy secretary, told the Financial Times that European countries should instead buy American liquefied natural gas, gasoline and other fossil fuel products to meet the terms of the US-EU trade deal, which calls on EU countries to buy $750bn of US energy by the end of 2028.
“If the Europeans drew a line and said: ‘We’re not going to buy more Russian gas, we’re not going to buy Russian oil’. Would that have a positive influence on the US leaning in more aggressively [on sanctions] as well? Absolutely,” he said in an interview ahead of talks with his EU counterpart in Brussels this week.