WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS: For the administration of President Donald Trump, a policy of"energy dominance" means reducing dependence on imported oil and promoting exports to boost the national economy and Washington's political influence overseas.AdvertisementThe Trump administration has capitalized on a decade-long US drilling boom to pursue some of the most aggressive foreign energy policies in the nation's history.
"We value highly the relationship with our American partners, allies and friends," EU Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici told reporters at a briefing in Brussels last month. “But ... they should also refrain from unilateral action." "What the US energy sector is doing is unleashing our energy resources and our technologies and sharing them with our partners and allies around the world to help them diversify their energy mix and ensure reliable supply," said the official.
"Increasingly, the America First framework translates into advocating for oil and gas sales around the world," said Tim Boersma, a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.The unilateral US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela would have triggered steep oil price increases without the surge in US supply.
Last month, for example, Mark Saavedra, a State Department official at the bureau of energy resources, called several European energy trading houses to instruct them not to trade jet fuel with Venezuela, a product that was not specifically on the US sanctions list for that country, according to three industry sources familiar with the calls.