Trump presses Germany and France to release oil reserves

The administration of US President Donald Trump is demanding that European Union countries, Germany and France above all, release oil from their strategic reserves. According to Reuters, Washington is asking the entire EU to release 120 million barrels of oil from reserves over the next six months.

An official European Commission spokesperson declined to comment directly on reports of American pressure on Berlin and Paris, but confirmed that Brussels is holding high-level talks with the Trump administration on the situation in the oil market. According to the spokesperson, the world is currently going through an energy crisis that affects not only the EU but other countries too. An unnamed EU official told Reuters that the European Commission, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland and the UK are currently negotiating a possible release of oil from reserves.

Washington's complaints about Europe

The White House claims that a number of European countries have failed to meet their commitments to use emergency oil and fuel reserves to offset supply disruptions caused by the conflict in the Middle East. The US has the most complaints about Germany and France — Washington has already raised these concerns with the International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates the release of emergency reserves among member countries.

In March, Washington agreed to release 172 million barrels of oil from its own strategic reserves. This was part of an agreement among roughly 30 IEA member countries to jointly release a total of 400 million barrels of oil worldwide. EU countries agreed to cover 20% of that volume.

“Only released part of it”

On Tuesday, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright criticized European countries for failing to meet their commitments. According to him, while the US and Japan are fulfilling their pledges, “some European countries have only released part” of the agreed volume of oil and fuel products. On Wednesday, Wright added that the US administration expects to hear from Europe soon about new oil deliveries.

Oil as a political problem

Rising fuel prices have become a political problem for Trump and his Republican Party, which will be fighting to keep its majority in Congress in November's midterm elections. The Trump administration is currently weighing a number of measures to bring prices down. “It's in Europe's interest to cooperate with the US,” one Reuters source said.

Europe's dependence on fuel supplies from the US has grown noticeably in recent times. This is linked to the ban on fuel imports from Russia following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as to supply disruptions from the Middle East caused by the war with Iran, which has paralyzed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a route that used to carry roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz