Last year the European Union imported energy raw materials worth 58.8 billion euros from the United States-about 66.4 billion US dollars at the 2025 exchange rate, according to Eurostat data cited by „Welt am Sonntag”.
In a customs‑tariff agreement the EU signed with President Donald Trump in the summer of 2025, the union pledged to purchase a total of 750 billion US dollars worth of energy from the United States over the three‑year period from 2026 to 2028. That would require an average of roughly 250 billion US dollars per year, a figure that represents a four‑fold increase over the value of U.S. energy imports in 2025.
The trade pact is currently stalled. The U.S. Supreme Court applied a veto, and President Trump announced higher tariffs on a different legal basis, causing the U.S. government to delay the deal’s implementation. The European Parliament has put the ratification on hold until the situation is clarified but still maintains its support for the agreement in principle.
Energy economist Hans‑Wilhelm Schiffer of RWTH Aachen says the 750 billion‑dollar target is unrealistic. “I can’t see how, given these numbers, it’s possible to reach the total by 2028, especially since the import value of U.S. energy into the EU has actually fallen compared to 2024″ he explained to „Welt am Sonntag”. Schiffer’s calculations were based on Eurostat figures for the newspaper.
The EU’s purchases from the United States last year were broken down as follows: coal imports of 2.6 billion euros, oil imports of 32 billion euros, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchases of 24.2 billion euros. The U.S. accounted for 52.5 percent of the total LNG supplied to Europe, far outweighing Russia’s share of 16 percent; Moscow’s LNG volumes paid 7.3 billion euros to European buyers.
The EU announced that it will discontinue all Russian energy imports from 1 November 2027, a move that could enable U.S. suppliers to gain a larger share of the market. Nevertheless, even if U.S. energy companies were to take over all Russian volumes, this would scarcely ease the challenge of meeting the 250 billion‑dollar annual obligation.
Schiffer reiterated that “even with a full replacement by U.S. imports, the gap between expectation and reality would remain enormous”. He added that, in the absence of a sustained rise in EU energy import volumes or a significant increase in international energy prices by 2028, the United States’ share of EU energy imports would need to climb from 19.4 percent in 2025 to more than 50 percent on average over 2026 to 2028 in order to meet the ambition set by the agreement.