The US’ dispute with Europe over Trump’s planned acquisition of Greenland, in pursuit of which he even threatened punitive tariffs against several NATO allies before relenting after they agreed to a framework deal, exposed the strict hierarchical vassal-client relationship between them. This was explicitly acknowledged by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who said that “Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else” in response to Trump’s pressure upon Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech at Davos complemented Wever’s worries when he accused the US of trying to “weaken and subordinate Europe”, in response to which he called for “clearly building more economic sovereignty and strategic autonomy”, though it’s arguably too late for that. Politico recently reported that “Fears grow over Europe’s soaring dependence on US gas imports”, which the US could weaponize amidst serious future disputes with the EU over whatever the issue might be.
Not only could it cut them off from its exports, but its blockade of Venezuela proves that it has the political will to seize energy tankers at sea, the policy of which could be employed in that scenario to ensure that other suppliers aren’t able to satisfy Europe’s needs. Likewise, the only realistic ones that could potentially do so are the Gulf Monarchies, which are all under US influence as it is. It’s therefore indeed possible that this dependence could be exploited to coerce concessions from a recalcitrant EU.
The question thus arises of how this dependence came to be, which is due to the US weaponizing Europe’s paranoia of Russia supposedly being the one to weaponize energy geopolitics as punishment for Europe’s military support of Ukraine, though nothing of the sort materialized. To the contrary, Russia remained committed to meeting its contractual obligations to Europe in spite of its energy exports literally fueling European arms factories producing weapons that are given to Ukrainians kill Russians.
In its defense, Russia’s calculations appear to be retaining its reputation as a reliable supplier in order to not scare away other clients (both current and prospective) as well as secure additional budgetary revenue, some of which is then invested in producing the weapons used in the special operation. To this day, Russia still exports energy to Europe, albeit at a much smaller scale due to Europe’s anti-Russian sanctions and its pivot away from Russian supplies to American ones.
Scaling up Russian energy imports isn’t in the cards, however, since no major European economy dares to anger the US by importing less from it. They only still import much lower levels of Russian energy due to the market’s inability to replace its exports till next year. Any move to scale up imports from Russia, such as resuming imports via the one undamaged Nord Stream pipeline or the several overland ones, could lead to their destruction as proven by the Nord Stream precedent, which is a powerful deterrent.
In retrospect, Europe ceded its sovereignty to the US by sanctioning Russian energy, which it did after the US weaponized its Russophobic paranoia. The US then replaced Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and is willing to weaponize this if Europe ever defies it on anything of significance. Had Europe and Russia maintained at scale their “Faustian bargain” of fueling each other’s arms industry, financially in Europe’s case and literally in Russia’s, then Europe would still have its “strategic autonomy”.
