US President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday the EU could face tariffs if the bloc does not reduce its growing deficit with the US by striking major oil and gas deals with the world’s largest economy.
The EU already buys the lion’s share of US oil and gas exports, according to the US government, and no additional volumes are currently available unless Washington increases production or diverts volumes from Asia, another major consumer of US energy.
The US president-elect said in a post on the social network Truth Social that he called on the European Union to offset its trade deficit with the United States by buying oil and gas on a large scale.
He said that if the EU failed to fulfil the demand he made, it would lead to the imposition of new duties “across the board” against the association when he officially takes office. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform:
“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way.”
The US is the world’s largest producer of crude oil and the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
The US trade deficit in goods and services with the European Union in 2022 was $131.3bn. The country was also the largest buyer of goods from the EU, accounting for 19.7% of exports in 2023.
In November, Donald Trump said that on the first day of his presidency he would impose new duties on China, Mexico and Canada to force them to take measures to combat illegal migration and drug smuggling into the United States.
