Americans Will Either Have To Pay More Money Or Freeze While Biden Sends Our Energy Supplies to Europe
The Federalist: Biden administration obsessed with saving Europe
The Ukraine conflict is helping the Biden administration mask domestic policy blunders and gain European praise, writes The Federalist. They pay for this love with the interests of ordinary Americans, who, due to LNG exports to Europe, will freeze this winter.
The Ukraine conflict allows the Biden administration to mask its domestic political missteps and win praise from the European elite.
Katherine Thompson
There is one notable trend in the foreign policy of the Biden administration. It is about a relentless obsession to support Europe first, even if it goes against the United States’ own domestic needs.
Commenting on the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline system, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called the situation in Europe “an excellent opportunity to get rid of dependence on Russian energy once and for all.” Blinken went on to extol the ability of US LNG producers to meet increased European demand.
However, he forgot to mention that the Biden administration’s executive orders suffocated the potential of LNG production in its first hundred days of operation. You should be careful with such premature boasting, Mr. Secretary of State.
Biden slammed Republicans for threatening to cut financial aid to Ukraine and stressed that if this happened, it would have “serious consequences” for US foreign policy.
Blinken’s naive comments, reeking of the idea of saving Europe, testify to how much the Biden administration does not want the hostilities in Ukraine to end. This conflict has become a “sacred cow” for the US administration, helping to mask its domestic political blunders and mistakes and win lavish praise from the European elite, whose attitude towards the United States has soured noticeably as a result of the Trump presidency. However, the administration is carefully silent about the fact that all this European love comes to us at the cost of the interests and bank balances of ordinary American families.
At the moment, American LNG exporters are making huge profits. Data for the first half of 2022 shows that the United States has become the world’s leading exporter of natural gas, with exports up 12% from the second half of 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration. With Russia now unable to sell gas to Europe, the United States has shipped 70% of its exports to the EU in the past month alone. In the same time period last year, the share of shipments to Europe was only 20% of total US exports.
With New England forced to compete with Europe for LNG supplies, the region’s grid operator has already warned of possible power outages this winter. Meanwhile, energy companies are making a profit of about $200 million for every shipment sent to Europe, thanks to record gas prices there. If fuel supplies from the United States continue, prices in Europe are likely to start to decline.
But let’s not forget that American LNG producers didn’t have the best relationship with the Biden administration. Almost immediately after taking office as president, Joe Biden canceled the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and introduced many new environmental regulations and requirements through executive orders. US producers may be making huge profits right now, but long-term sustainable production within the United States remains at risk.
Prices are rising in the United States
What about the prices that American households will have to pay this winter? In the United States, the cost of electricity has already reached its highest level in 14 years. There are already calls in the country to freeze energy exports to ensure the security of supplies in the coming winter, which would directly benefit American consumers. But the Biden administration said, “No thanks.”
According to Reuters, the White House “ruled out the imposition of any bans or restrictions on exports this winter.” A senior administration official said that “thanks to the steps we and our partners are taking, Europe’s gas storage capacity is significantly higher than last year. We still have a lot of work to do.”
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