The European Union will revive its offer to buy more American gas, betting that United States President Donald Trump is more open to negotiating after pausing his economy-shaking tariffs.

The bloc plans to reopen talks about boosting U.S. liquefied natural gas purchases and will offer specific proposals to address Trump’s anger about transatlantic trade, three European officials briefed on the talks told POLITICO, granted anonymity to speak about the closed-door discussions.

Specifically, they said, the EU is looking at ways to aggregate demand — a process that would let the continent place larger, pan-European orders to meet the White House's demands, but ideally at more competitive rates.

The offer is not necessarily new. The EU has been trying to engage the Trump administration for months on the issue, but diplomats said their outreach ran into confusion and disinterest in Washington. Now, however, the situation has changed — markets are cratering, and business leaders are begging Trump to change tactics. 

"These proposals have been on the table for a while, but we're hoping now there is an opportunity to make progress," one of the officials said.

Buy now?

Since his election last November, Trump has repeatedly insisted the EU buy more American oil and gas to avoid a trade war.

On Tuesday he raised the stakes after imposing sweeping 20 percent tariffs on the EU, saying the continent must spend $350 billion more on American energy to make up what the president sees as a persistent trade shortfall. Despite the rhetoric, the U.S. and EU actually have a relatively balanced trade relationship when accounting for both goods and services.

Late Wednesday, however, Trump announced a 90-day pause on most global tariffs, insisting that America's partners now negotiate to eradicate trade barriers.

The EU is taking that as another opening to push its LNG offer. Officials have been open about their desire to consume more American fuel, framing it as a way for the continent to finally sever all energy links with warmongering Russia. 

“In the future, we will be buying more gas from the U.S.," EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said at an industry event on Tuesday, while stressing that the purchases would need to align with the bloc's green goals.

That said, there is only so much the EU can ultimately do. At the end of the day, it’s companies, not governments, that purchase LNG. And some EU countries have indicated their companies are already bringing in as much U.S. LNG as possible. 

It’s also unclear how well a demand aggregation scheme would work. The EU launched a similar system after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, hoping to bring down sky-high prices. But few companies ultimately participated. 

Still, pooling orders from private suppliers and matching them with American suppliers is one way the bloc can ingest larger volumes of U.S. LNG.

Concerns about LNG prices are also hanging over the talks.

The EU requires countries to fill their fuel storage tanks to 90 percent of capacity by Nov. 1 each year, and capitals are fretting that a summer rush to buy supplies — much of them American — will drive up costs. EU countries are pushing to relax those rules, hoping that flexibility will let them spend less overall on LNG. 

On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned the EU would respond in kind to tariffs being reimposed, but for now, she said, "We want to give negotiations a chance."

The article was published in Politico. Victor Jack and Camille Gijs contributed to this article.

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