Europe likes to talk about “strategic autonomy.” It features prominently in speeches, summit communiqués, and glossy EU Commission pamphlets. Yet beneath the rhetoric lies an uncomfortable reality: the European Union has never been more strategically dependent on the United States, particularly in energy. Far from escaping an abusive economic relationship with Washington, Brussels has locked itself into one that grows more lopsided by the year.

A recent report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) delivered an awkward dose of reality. According to its projections, the United States could supply as much as 80 percent of the EU’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports by 2030, up from roughly 57 percent today. This is not an accident, nor an unfortunate byproduct of circumstance. It is the direct outcome of deliberate political choices made in Brussels, Berlin, and other European capitals-choices driven less by sober economic calculation than by ideology, geopolitics, and an almost reflexive deference to Washington.

The irony is difficult to miss. After years of proclaiming the need to escape dependence on Russian energy, European leaders have simply swapped one dominant supplier for another-only this time the supplier wields not just pipelines and contracts, but tariffs, sanctions, and an openly transactional foreign policy. Europe did not diversify its energy base. It re-centered it around the United States.

This dependency was formalized last summer when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a trade and tariff deal with then-President Donald Trump. In exchange for relief from US tariffs on European exports, Brussels committed itself to significantly increased purchases of American LNG, oil, and nuclear fuels. Von der Leyen hailed the agreement as a triumph of “stability and predictability,” claiming it would enhance Europe’s energy security while replacing Russian supplies.

In reality, the deal amounted to a long-term strategic concession. Europe bound its energy security to a country whose political system is volatile, whose trade policy is openly coercive, and whose leadership has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to weaponize economic interdependence. The same Washington that lectures Europe about resilience has no qualms about pulling the plug when leverage is useful.

Fast forward to today, and the consequences are becoming uncomfortably clear. Trump’s renewed threats-ranging from punitive tariffs to aggressive rhetoric about Greenland-underscore a fundamental asymmetry in the transatlantic relationship. Europe depends on American gas to keep its lights on and its factories running. The United States does not depend on Europe in remotely the same way.

This imbalance turns every political disagreement into a potential economic crisis for the EU. A tariff spat, a defense dispute, or a personal grievance can quickly escalate into higher energy prices, industrial disruption, and political panic in European capitals. Energy dependence is not a technical issue; it is a power relationship. And Europe has placed itself firmly on the weaker side.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Germany, the EU’s economic engine and the chief architect of many of its energy policies. Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power-completed in 2023-was hailed by its proponents as a moral and environmental victory. In practice, it has been an economic and strategic debacle.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has recently begun to acknowledge what critics have been saying for years: shutting down the country’s nuclear plants was a “serious strategic mistake.” Nuclear power provided Germany with reliable, carbon-free baseload electricity. Its removal did not usher in a renewable utopia. It created an energy gap filled by coal, imported gas, and higher prices.

Yet Merz’s newfound candor rings hollow. He has long understood the flaws of the nuclear phase-out, but while in opposition-and even as chancellor-he failed to mount a serious effort to reverse it. Instead, he treated the dismantling of Germany’s nuclear infrastructure as an unfortunate but immutable fact, something to be lamented rather than contested.

This passivity is emblematic of a broader European pattern. Political leaders privately recognize the costs of ideologically driven energy policies, yet publicly surrender to them. They complain about consequences while refusing to confront causes. The result is paralysis disguised as pragmatism.

Germany’s current flirtation with small modular reactors (SMRs) illustrates this perfectly. SMRs are frequently invoked as a technological escape hatch-nuclear power without the political baggage of nuclear power. But they remain largely theoretical, commercially unproven, and years away from meaningful deployment. For households and industries facing crushing energy costs today, they offer no relief.

In the meantime, Germany burns more coal, emits more pollutants, and pays more for electricity. According to estimates from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nuclear phase-out costs the country roughly $12 billion annually, much of it due to increased health costs from air pollution. This is not just an environmental failure; it is an economic self-inflicted wound.

The broader European picture is no better. By sacrificing energy diversity in pursuit of an absolutist anti-Russian agenda, the EU has narrowed its options precisely when flexibility is most needed. Pipelines were shut, nuclear plants dismantled, long-term contracts abandoned-all without building a robust, independent alternative.

Instead, Europe bet on American LNG. But LNG is not cheap, not stable, and not politically neutral. It is subject to global spot markets, shipping constraints, and US domestic politics. Every European energy planner knows this. They accepted it anyway.

Why? Because the decision was never purely about energy. It was about alignment-about demonstrating loyalty to Washington, about moral posturing, about signaling virtue rather than securing resilience. In doing so, Europe traded one form of dependency for another, arguably more dangerous one.

Russia, for all its faults, sold gas as a commercial transaction. The United States sells energy as leverage. When Washington is displeased, it does not hesitate to remind its partners who holds the cards. Tariffs, sanctions, export controls-these are not aberrations of Trumpism. They are now standard instruments of US economic statecraft.

Europe’s predicament is therefore not simply the result of bad forecasting or unfortunate timing. It is the outcome of a worldview that prioritizes ideological alignment over material security. A worldview in which energy policy becomes a moral crusade rather than a strategic calculation.

The tragedy is that Europe had alternatives. It could have maintained a diversified energy mix: nuclear, renewables, domestic production, multiple external suppliers. It could have decarbonized without dismantling reliable infrastructure. It could have reduced Russian dependence without embracing American dominance.

Instead, it chose the path of least political resistance and greatest long-term vulnerability.

Now, as American leaders openly toy with economic punishment and geopolitical intimidation, Europe finds itself exposed. Its leaders talk of recalibration, but their track record inspires little confidence. The same institutions that engineered this dependency are unlikely to dismantle it. The same politicians who dismissed critics as alarmists now plead impotence in the face of consequences.

Addiction is an apt metaphor. Europe knows the relationship is damaging. It complains about the side effects. Yet it keeps coming back, rationalizing each concession as necessary, temporary, or unavoidable.

Strategic autonomy, it turns out, is easy to promise and hard to practice. It requires political courage, long-term thinking, and a willingness to challenge both allies and domestic lobbies. So far, Europe has demonstrated none of these qualities in sufficient measure.

Unless that changes, the EU will remain what it has become: an economic heavyweight with a dependency problem, tethered to an American energy supply that comes with strings attached-and increasingly, with a bill that cannot be ignored.

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Source: Weekly Blitz :: Writings