The European Commission is ready to negotiate large-scale purchases of liquefied natural gas, LNG, in the United States. This is according to a spokesman for the European Commission. The announcement comes after US President Donald Trump on Monday rejected the European Commission's offer of "zero-to-zero" tariffs on cars and industrial goods.
Instead, Trump said that the EU would have to commit to buying US energy for 350 billion dollars in order to get a postponement of Trump's tariffs.
- We are certainly ready to discuss and negotiate with the United States on energy, says a spokesman for the European Commission.
However, the European Commission does not want to comment on the realism of Trump's high figures. The 350 billion dollars corresponds to almost 2400 billion kroner.
- We want to phase out Russian LNG gas. We can cooperate with the United States on that. But we also cooperate with other suppliers, says the spokesperson for the European Commission.
However, the European Commission cannot make the agreements itself, as it is up to the member states to organize their own energy mix. Therefore, it is the European Commission that is responsible for the actual purchase of energy. The European Commission can, however, help ensure that, for example, the infrastructure is in place to receive American gas in Europe.
At the same time, the European Commission may be able to help organize joint energy purchases among the EU countries, if there is support for it. The announcement comes while the European Commission is negotiating with the Trump administration in an attempt to find a solution that can avert reciprocal tariffs on goods.
The negotiations were formally launched on Friday with a meeting between the EU Commissioner for Trade, Maros Sefcovic, and representatives of the Trump administration. It was here that the European Commission offered the US an agreement on zero tariffs on cars and industrial products if the US would similarly impose zero tariffs on corresponding European goods entering the US.
- Europe is ready to negotiate with the US, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday.
However, she also stressed that the EU Commission is preparing to respond to Trump's tariffs if a solution cannot be found.
The offer from the EU Commission came after Trump imposed a 20 percent tariff on the EU last week. Trump's tariffs have led to major falls in stock markets around the world, and European stocks, among others, had a blood-red day on Monday before starting to climb back up on Tuesday.
This happened in the hours after the US president made it clear that the zero tariff proposal is not enough. Trump wants to have the trade deficit with the EU, which the US president puts at "350 billion dollars".
- We have a deficit with the EU of 350 billion dollars, and it will disappear quickly.
- One of the ways that it can disappear easily and quickly is that they will have to buy our energy from us, Trump said Monday.
jel /ritzau/
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