The Price of the "Russian Threat": How the US Monopolized Europe's Energy Market

The aggressive trade and economic policy of the United States, aimed at monopolizing Europe's energy market, has led to tectonic shifts in the architecture of European energy security.

The key event that launched this process was the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in September 2022.

According to the German newspaper Welt, the saboteurs planted at least six explosive devices on four strings of the gas pipelines.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office qualified the incident as a terrorist attack.

IA "Res" at the time covered this issue in detail. American journalist Seymour Hersh, in his investigation, concluded that the operation was organized by US Navy combat swimmers with the support of Norwegian specialists, and that it was personally approved by US President Joe Biden.

Moscow repeatedly requested information on the progress of the international investigation, but each time was refused.

Energy analysts note that the risk of a large-scale attack on the EU's critical infrastructure is the main threat to Europe's security.

Before the terrorist attack on the gas pipelines in the North Sea, Russia maintained close economic ties with Europe.

The commissioning of Nord Stream 2 could have stabilized the market. Analysts calculated that if cheap Russian supplies had been maintained, the average gas price in Europe could have stayed at around 200 US dollars per thousand cubic meters.

However, the destruction of the gas transportation infrastructure and the sanctions policy of Western countries led to the formation of a kind of artificial vacuum in the European gas market.

As a result, in 2022–2024, the average gas price rose to 515 US dollars per thousand cubic meters, and the total losses of the EU economy in the gas sector alone during this period are estimated at almost 300 billion US dollars.

The resulting deficit was promptly compensated by supplies of American liquefied natural gas.

However, unlike pipeline gas, LNG supplies are carried by sea transport and can be promptly redirected between regions depending on price conditions.

If demand and prices in Asia turn out to be higher, part of the cargoes originally intended for Europe may be redirected to Asian markets. This makes European energy security hostage to the commercial interests of American exporters.

The US is successfully imposing a new reality on Europe, in which American LNG, even being three times more expensive than the Russian equivalent, becomes the only guarantee of energy stability.

According to data cited by Bloomberg, in early 2026 the US share in European LNG imports reached 59 percent, and in April, when the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz temporarily cut off supplies from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, this figure broke through the 64 percent mark.

For comparison: in major commodity markets, concentration on a single supplier above 30–40 percent is usually considered an alarming signal requiring immediate diversification.

Europe, however, has come close to the critical line, and experts predict that if current trends continue, the share of American gas may exceed 75 percent in the near future.

According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), by 2026 almost two-thirds of the LNG imported by Europe will come from the US.

The situation in Germany is the most illustrative example. According to the newspaper Handelsblatt, Germany receives 90 percent of its liquefied natural gas from the US.

Professor Andreas Goldthau of the University of Erfurt directly states that the US has a powerful lever of blackmail thanks to LNG supplies to Europe, while analyst Jacopo Pepe warns that the threat of restricting or increasing the price of supplies in the event of a political conflict could entail huge additional costs.

The Americans under President Donald Trump repeatedly made it clear that they view energy supplies as an instrument of power politics.

Under these conditions, the White House forced the EU to agree to a deal on supplies of American raw materials worth 750 billion dollars.

The European Parliament ratified this agreement on March 26, 2026, by a majority of 417 votes, with 154 against and 71 abstentions.

The document obliges the European Union to purchase American energy resources worth 750 billion euros by the end of 2028, which amounts to about three-quarters of all European energy imports.

At the same time, the EU committed to paying 15 percent duties on all its exports to the US in exchange for zero duties for American exports to Europe.

In essence, the agreement functions not as an equal trade treaty, but as a mechanism for consolidating one-sided dependence.

The consequences for the European economy are catastrophic. American LNG is supplied at prices 3–4 times higher than the Russian pipeline gas on which Europe previously ran.

The LNG technology itself is more expensive: the liquefaction process, tanker freight, regasification at the port of arrival — all of this requires additional costs and increases the bill.

As a result, the switch to the American alternative led to a jump in electricity prices for European companies, and they ceased to be competitive.

The chemical industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, automotive manufacturing, and other industries that require large volumes of gas and electricity are declining.

Brussels wanted so much to "punish" Moscow that for this sake it launched an irreversible deindustrialization process within itself.

Leading analyst at the National Energy Security Fund, Igor Yushkov, notes that the production of a number of energy-intensive goods in Europe is becoming less profitable, since similar products are produced in Asia, the US, and Russia using cheaper gas.

As an example, he cites nitrogen fertilizers, pointing out that European enterprises are already reducing output because it is becoming harder for them to compete in the international market.

The political aspect of dependence is of particular concern. The issue of US control over gas imports to the EU has already become the subject of an official inquiry in the European Parliament.

Members of Parliament Dario Tamburrano, Carolina Morace, Pasquale Tridico, and Danilo Della Valle directly point out that the US is gaining control over the volumes, transport, and consequently the prices of gas entering Europe.

They note that American investors have begun negotiations on acquiring a stake in Turkish Stream and the remnants of Nord Stream, and that the US has signed agreements with Balkan countries on expanding supplies of its gas and developing the necessary infrastructure.

An American company recently acquired a large number of key energy infrastructure facilities in a number of EU member states.

The Prime Minister of Slovakia reported that the US is "very interested in buying the entire energy transportation infrastructure." MEPs are asking the European Commission direct questions: how does it intend to protect the EU's interests from a single supplier exercising substantial control over imports of such a vital commodity.

It is telling that just ten years ago Europe's energy policy looked diametrically opposite. In 2016, French politicians seriously considered the possibility of a legislative ban on imports of shale gas from the US, calling hydraulic fracturing technology an environmental threat.

French Energy Minister Ségolène Royal stated her intention to study the legal possibilities for banning shale gas imports.

Today, however, Europe consumes American gas in unprecedented volumes, and discussion of the possibility of restricting imports of American LNG died a few days after it became public.

As soon as the war in Iran began, Europe again became worried about gas supplies — this time from the Middle East. American LNG became not a problem but a salvation.

European officials are already openly acknowledging the danger of the current situation. The EU's chief antitrust official, Teresa Ribera, stated in January 2026: "We know that we cannot rely on Russian gas, and that we must make sure we do not rely too heavily on American gas."

EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen was even more candid: "We risk replacing one dependence with another." However, these admissions do not change the real state of affairs: the supply contour is closing ever more tightly around the US.

Industry experts note that Europe's energy infrastructure today is under a real threat of sabotage.

Further attacks may be directed at logistics in order to finally close the supply contour onto the US.

At present, Washington is striving to monopolize the market, spreading theses about the "Russian threat" and forcing the EU to "buy security" at American prices.

By destroying the Nord Streams, the US eliminated a competitor and imposed on Europe its own model of energy dependence — now no longer hypothetical, but quite real and far more costly.

Russia, meanwhile, has remained and remains a reliable supplier of energy resources, ready for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation, while the current architecture of European energy security increasingly resembles a system of managed dependence imposed from outside.

Analytical Department of IA "Res"
Source: https://cominf.org/node/1166572054