El día de Pascua, 20.04, me entrevistaron en directo por radio, en muchas ciudades de Europa y del hemisferio occidental. On Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, I was interviewed live in several cities of Europe and the Western Hemisphere.The interview was in Spanish. An English Google translation is below (RHS column). The topic was the negotiations of the Trump USA administration between Russia and Ukraine to end the war. Tom OD.)
Mi agradecimiento por la invitación de María Eugenia Plano, productora del programa radial Corresponsales en Línea, realizado por las corresponsales de los diarios Clarín y La Nación en París y Londres (María Laura Avignolo), París (Danielle Raymond), Madrid (Silvia Pisani), Berlin (Araceli Viceconte), Washington ( Paula Lugones) y San Pablo (Cristina Veiga) con la conducción de Silvia Naishtat (Editora de Economía de Clarín). en vivo y en directo para Radio Ciudad en Buenos Aires, los días domingos de 10 a 12 AM Hora Argentina. My thanks for the invitation from María Eugenia Plano, producer of the radio program Corresponsales en Línea, made by the correspondents of the newspapers Clarín and La Nación in Paris and London (María Laura Avignolo), Paris (Danielle Raymond), Madrid (Silvia Pisani), Berlin (Araceli Viceconte), Washington (Paula Lugones) and Sao Paulo (Cristina Veiga) hosted by Silvia Naishtat (Economics Editor of Clarín). live and direct for Radio Ciudad in Buenos Aires, Sundays from 10 to 12 AM Argentine time.
Above: Audio of my comments to (various) press on 22 April 25, on the impact of falling oil prices on Russia’s capacity to war on Ukraine. Also, a scenario I have discussed for over a year, first privately and then publicly, of how the USA could shut down the great majority of Russia’s seaborne oil exports, to devastating consequences for its oil sector and capacity to continue the war. In the present market situation of oversupply and anticipated continued weak demand, this could be done in a way that does not spike global oil prices.
This will only be done if Trump decides he needs to use harsh coercion to force Putin into an acceptable peace deal with Ukraine, AND if Trump were willing to impose lasting harm on the older Russian oil fields.
Xi Jinping has still not built China’s domestic market to escape its trade-war vulnerabilities from over-dependence on exports, a weakness he openly discussed back in February 2012 on his USA tour before becoming premier.
For the USA, Trump had apparently planned to have resolved the Ukraine war and in some way undermined the Russia-China alliance, inducing Russia to move closer to the USA before going after China. But, ending the war has proven far more difficult than he anticipated. His lack of success with Russia will weigh on his ability to negotiate from a position of strength with all the countries he is competing to win away from China’s geoeconomics orbit such as India, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand and etc. — the states that Treasury Secretary would say are in the “yellow zone” as opposed to the USA#s closest allies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, in the so-called “green zone.” For details – see this post on my blog,
Here’s my interview and a written elaboration – in lieu of a transcript:
Trump’s “tariff shock” on everyone was intended mainly to force negotiations. Especially this is to insure no country:
Functions as a transit state for Chinese exports to get into the USA without paying crippling tariffs, or
Provides a Chinese-owned manufacturing site in their country with the same aim of accessing the USA market without crippling tariffs..
Trump’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Miran and Treasury Secretary Bessent have been fairly clear about this, if one listens in detail.
Trump Tariffs’ impact on Europe – Deindustrialization. German auto sector as an example.
While Trump and his circle militate against “deindustrialization” of the USA accomplished over the past few decades by the growth of Chinese manufacturing capacity and the export of these products into the USA market, Europe has an immediate problem, however, with the current advance of its “deindustrialization” or, as some more optimistically say, its new industrial “evolution”. [Some references from major German economic institutes on deindustrialization: IFO Institute, IW Institute, Kiel Institute, the latter of which has evolved a bit on this].
Taking the German auto industry as an example, it was already suffering from well known, chronic problems of Germany’s own making. These include two decades of low infrastructure investments, poor digitalization, high taxes, and being subjected to arbitrary government mandates to reduce diesel sales and increase battery electric vehicle production, and etc. ON top of this, German industry has also suffered high energy prices due to the countries exceptionally complex all-renewables energy transition model. On top of this came suddenly, from 2021, the Russian energy war, which denied Europe half of the cheap gas that European, and especially German industry was relying on to compensate for the high-cost of the all-renewables transition.
This energy war – and on the heels of the Covid shock – was devastating to German manufacturing and heavy industries, providing the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. In my assessment at the time, this was the point at which German industry’s problems of multi-faceted uncompetitiveness morphed into a form of deindustrialization,
Germany is in its third year of recession. However, this is not just a recession. Note that the VW, the German auto firm, for example, in September 2024, began mass layoffs for the first time in 87 years in September 2024. BASF is in a similar conundrum. In my view this is a systemic, secular problem over and above any present economic downturn.
So, the point of painting this detailed picture of the crisis of German automobile manufacturing, as an example, is that one can now really only imagine what a sharp knock-on effect Trump’s auto tariffs and his other tariffs might have on top of all this. This is devastating. Already the CEO of Mercedes has said if the tariffs continue he will move the production of the cheaper models to the USA. Already one of the largest exporters of cats from the USA is a German factory.
My response (critique) of Jeff Sacks‘ dollar-decline predictions
I was asked to listen to a clip from Asharq/Bloomberg’s earlier on-air interview with Nobel Prize economist, Jeffry Sachs, about his prediction that the US dollar would lose its reserve currency status in this decade and be replaced by regional currencies.
My take was that there was little new (or old) factual evidence of this, plus Trump’s tariff shock is not necessarily a long-term tactic. So, I commented that Sachs has had this theory for a long time, an it is nothing new. (I think it is fair to say he is quite sympathetic to China in various interviews, for some years now.) So, I simply said I was not surprised he says this, as he has for a long time.
However, I explained (with a bit more factual detail than Sachs, I hope) that indeed, even Trump’s theorist Miran and Bessent too agree that the tariffs strategy is designed to reduce the value of the dollar (its aims is precisely a weak dollar), and this should normally mean that the dollar loses its reserve currency status, its preferred use in the world, that these Trump theorists have a plan for a “Mar-a-Lago” or similar accord for states that are seen as being key, close allies, who would agree to peg their currencies to the dollar, and that they should be expected to agree as they need to trade into the USA market.. This is based on the observation that the USA market has a special status in the world. If this were to pass, they theorize that this would in fact preserve the special, preferred reserve status of the US dollar. Trump likes this as he has said that if this status is lost, then the destiny of the USA is to be a “third world” economy. **Continued at GlobalBarrel.com ….
Credit: Vėjo jėgainė | J. Stacevičiaus / LRT nuotr.
My gratitude to LRT.lt journalist Vaida Kalinkaitė-Matuliauskienė for this in-depth print interview. We spoke just after Baltic states had disconnected from the Russian-Belarus electrical grid, BRELL, and had connected with the European grid. This was a complex and costly project, executed rapidly and flawlessly. [My comment continue below, after the English (first link) and Lithuanian (second link) versions:]
The Baltic states’ impetus was obvious: a deep mistrust of Russia after its 2022 cutoff of half of all European gas imports intended to pressure EU states to abandon solidarity with Ukraine as Russia invaded it. So, switching to the European grid is a great relief. However, the dangers haven’t ended.
Last night, I was live on Al Jazeera’s evening news to give an “EU perspective” on Trump’s sweeping tariffs on the EU and have a bit of a debate with Hon. Robert Arlett, Sussex County Council, Delaware, USA – a MAGA supporter. I was happy to do so.
I think I made several decent points of criticism about how the entire premise for “retaliation” against the EU on trade was “made up” under an “arbitrary” formula that “makes no sense.” I allowed that, as is often the case with Trump, much of this, the “retaliatory” portion, might be a pressure tactic for some other, still-to-be-revealed concession Trump is aiming for from Europe.
Of course, this is the geo-economic side to Trump’s geostrategic undermining of a unified USA-EU approach to facing Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. (However exactly how that new geostrategic relationship with Europe and NATO might all fit into Trump’s larger, global security strategy is still mostly up in the air, a matter still taking shape.)
However, as for these massive tariffs on Europe and Asian allies, these are a systematic attempt to dismantle globalization as we have known it and instead to focus on the subordination of European and Asian allies to a system where hegemon is unwilling to pay certain costs of maintaining its allies within its system.
Trump envisions a system where the USA makes no sacrifices or pays no communal costs, but must profit at every step from each and every ally. Indeed, the USA has powerful tools afforded it from its geo-economic dominance, tools which Trump seeks to exploit to unilaterally shape international economic and geopolitical relations, while forcing its allies to pay for the privilege and advantages of belonging to the USA-hegemon-maintained system.
I felt greatly honored to speak in Ireland, the home of my ancestors, at a high-level Irish-Polish event, invited by the Polish embassy as part of Poland’s Presidency of the European Council. [Spoiler alert: my assessment of the Green Deal’s impact on EU energy security and competitiveness was highly critical. And, I called for a radical reform, modeled on the 1970-80’s French Messmer nuclear program, the response to a similarly dire European energy and competitiveness crisis.]
For Ireland we had Secretary General Oonagh Buckley and Wind Energy Ireland CEO Noel Cunniffee; for Poland, Daniel Piekarsky, Head of Energy Security Unit in the Foreign Ministry, and myself, Global Fellow of the Wilson Center, Washington (external) working in Europe, from Berlin.
Our moderator, from the Polish Embassy, Dublin, was the Polish diplomat and patriot, Dr. Jacek Rosa — a good friend, with whom I had the great pleasure of closely collaborating, for several years, in opposition to the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas-pipeline partnership, before the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Below is the lineup, the initial invitation and some pictures. The event was off-the-record, so I show here only my own, slightly redacted talk.
TRT asked me to be ready to comment, live, on the Oval Office meeting just before it blew up. I said Vance acted “infantile”. What I should have stressed, however, is that understanding Vance’s decision to blow up the meeting is key to understanding Trump’s strategy towards Russia, Ukraine, and Europe. (So, in this post the written analysis is the main thing, not the video.)
My TRT quick take, 28 Feb. See my later analysis, in the blog post.
There is plenty of facile analyses of this clash. Many say the blowup reflected “chaos” in Trump’s policy on Ukraine and Russia, or that Trump has an “impulsive” strategy, that he “dislikes Ukraine”, he’s “pro-Russian,” or that the blowup was a “prearranged ambush” to “humiliate” Zelensky, or similar.
Too few consider the possibility that the rebuke is consistent with a well-defined USA strategy. What quickly becomes clear from listening, at face value, to multiple statements by Trump himself and his team is that they have a consistent strategy. This is clearly not the first Trump administration. This second administration is different in its unity and consistency on its Ukraine, Russia, and Europe policies.
What was the purpose of the “minerals” deal that Zelensky came to sign?
The weeks-long USA-Ukrainian clash over this deal has reflected their geostrategic differences on a peace deal with Russia. After heated exchanges and compromises, clearly the Ukrainian side was not pleased with the issues it had had to give up in the minerals deal. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s Council of Ministers voted to endorse the deal, and Zelensky went to DC explicitly to sign it.
Interestingly, just before he went to the White House, President Zelensky met with a group of Republican and Democratic senators, who had “… all told him sign the deal and don’t get into an argument.” (War on the Rocks, timestamp 7:58-8:19, 06.03.25). Alas, if one watches Zelensky’s public argumentation, from the start of the press conference, and his telling Trump that a deal without a US security guarantee won’t work, all of which is in contradiction to the deal he is about to sign, it is clear that he precipitated the breakdown. In my reading of the event, he seemed to not be able to restrain himself, seemingly out of an understandable deep anguish at being about to sign an accord contrary to his better judgment.
What did each side want in the “minerals” deal, and who got what?
Everything I found to have been said by the actors on the USA and Ukrainian sides as to what each wanted in the document is quite consistent.
On the Ukrainian side, the big one was a USA security guarantee for any deal Trump makes with Putin. The Ukrainians certainly welcome the willingness of European allies to extend security guarantees for any deal, especially the public commitments made by both the UK and France to contribute troops, but they were clear that they did not think this can substitute for a USA guarantee standing behind theirs. Related to this, the Ukrainians opposed taking NATO membership for them off the table. Another was a seat at the table for Ukraine and the Europeans during negotiations with Russia (Trump wants something more like a shuttle diplomacy between the two.) Related to this, is that the USA should not negotiate a cease fire deal without them. Still another was refusing to agree beforehand to give up any Ukrainian territory that has been occupied by Russia.
Obviously the USA disagreed and de facto or openly refused all these conditions. However, the disagreement over the security guarantee seemed to be the most hot-button issue between them. Trump flatly refused. His reasoning, as explained to the press was interesting, revealing a lot about his philosophy or method for negotiating a peace deal. He said that the two sides obviously hated one another and he had to go between the two to negotiate anything. (Read Trump’s own words, in the transcript below.)
The Trump concept of economic interests and security interests
He also said that they had to trust him, saying that it just would not work if he first gave a security guarantee, taking Ukraine’s side so clearly beforehand. He also said that the ultimate security guarantee “is the easy part” and getting the deal “is the hard part.” He said the guarantees can “come later.” It became clear that, in his approach, this minerals deal was to be the signal to Putin that the USA would have long-term economic interests in Ukraine and would, of course, in Trump’s view of how the world works, defend against any threats to those economic interests.
This approach is clearly seen as highly risky by Ukraine, which has been abandoned once before under what was an explicit security guarantee, the Bucharest Memorandum, extended in return for giving up its nuclear weapons in the 1990’s. As Zelensky recounted for Trump, no signatories of the Minsk Accords extended security guarantees after Russia’s 2014 aggression, and Putin broke them constantly
The text of the final document, the one the Ukrainian ministers approved, is known; it was published in Kyiv two days before the Oval Office meeting. (The full text of the Ukraine-US Minerals Agreement, European Pravda, Kyiv, 26.02.25). So, it is easy to see that Kyiv didn’t get its main demands, although the USA did compromise, in a sense, on one of them, agreeing to an explicit mention of a “security guarantee.” However, the USA did not extend one as a quid-pro-quo for the minerals deal, rather in Section 10. the wording is:
The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. Participants will seek to identify any necessary steps to protect mutual investments, as defined in the Fund Agreement.
So, the USA vision of security, to “protect mutual investments,” is asserted in association..
This is in English, after Eugene Romer of Układ Sił media introduces me in Polish. This was at the “3 Seas -1 Opportunity Forum” in Gdansk, last June 4-5, 2024. I have been wanting to post it ever since, as the questions remain relevant. My thanks to Eugene and his team, and to his Opportunity Think Tank colleagues.
My panel at the forum was on problems of relying on energy security that arrives via the sea. So, think Poland and Lithuania’s LNG terminals, of the many sub-sea pipelines, power and communications cables between Baltic and Nordic states. And, since June, all the incidents where ships leaving Russian ports “accidentally” dragged their anchors, cutting such vital links. So, this conference was rather prescient. My sincere thanks to our hosts The Opportunity Institute for Foreign Affairs.
My long print interview at Lithuania’s LRT [Lithuanian PDF | English PDF] with Aleksandra Ketlerienė, deputy editor-in-chief of Lithuania’s LRT.lt, published 7January. We spoke in Warsaw, 19 November. My thanks to Aleksandra for her insightful questioning and editorial care. We discussed:
The EU’s systemic energy-policy “own goals” since its initial energy-crisis win after Moscow began cutting gas exports early in 2021.
Reforming failed/ineffective Russian price-cap sanctions for real sanctions, and how the global oil market is now favorable for “maximum pressure.”
Historical perspectives on oil, gas, renewables, and nuclear sectors, essential for realistic policy formation.
An historical overview of China’s decades-long effort to overcome its energy security, learning lessons of Japan’s WW2 weaknesses.
I appeared alongside Dr. Hashem Aqel, Oil and Energy Expert, Associate Fellow at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, who contributed several insights. Asharq News is the Mideast Bloomberg partner. My further analysis follows:
Arabic, original broadcast version.
The recent rise in EU gas prices and the rapid depletion of what had been a significant surplus in EU storage, is principally a two-sided story.
One side is indeed about the impending cutoff of Russian gas, still flowing across Ukraine. This has been expected for months, and so is already largely priced in. Expectations of new transit across Ukraine of Russian-origin gas re-labelled as Azerbaijani was being negotiated. However, this deal fell apart, with the final nail in its coffin being when Ukraine’s President Zelensky asserted that Ukraine would not transit any further Russian-origin gas after 31 December unless payments to Russia are withheld until after the war ends. This seems a very reasonable demand for a country fighting for its survival against a Russian invasion. [See “Ukraine will not allow transit of Russian gas with Azeri label, Zelenskyy says, dashing Slovak hopes,” EuroNews, Jorge Liboreir 19 Dec. 2024.] This marks the end of the five-year contract, which was only agreed to at the last moment before New Year 2020, when the US Senate finally forced then-President Trump to agree to sanctions on Nord Stream 2 construction (I was in Kyiv, for Naftogaz, and on Ukrainian television, analyzing Washington sanctions, Kyiv-Moscow negotiations, and the pro-Nord Stream position of Berlin.)
The other side is a story of yet another European energy own-goal, a consequence of its over-reliance on weather-dependent renewable energy generation. This overreliance has made its electricity supply increasingly volatile, in sync with the weather. In November and early December, especially north and western Europe experienced what the Germans call “Dunkelflaute“, a protracted wind and solar drought. Batteries can only substitute for perhaps 40 minutes, or at best an hour. So, the de facto long-term, grid-scale “storage” backing up Europe’s plethora of wind and sun generation is really just natural-gas turbine electrical generation plants. The reality of increased generation (and hence, electricity market) volatility and dependence on gas backup generation was analyzed this week in a data-driven manner by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. [See: “Dunkelflaute: Driving Europe Gas Demand Volatility” Energy Insight: 161, by Anouk Honoré and Jack Sharples, Senior Research Fellows, OIES, 2024/12.]
This is a continuation of my remarks in Warsaw, on 18 November.Part 1, which posted on 19 December, reviewed failures to develop critical tech elements required by the EU Green Deal, a program modeled on the German Energiewende. I argued that, after decades of R&D efforts, these technology failures indicate the systemic failure of heavily renewable models, pointing to a need for “radical reform” of the Green Deal. I advocated for the historically proven Messmer model, which succeeded, some 40 years ago, in decarbonizing French electrical generation using nuclear power, without any need for new grids or long-term grid-scale storage tech.
Below, Part 2 (edited for clarity) focuses on the political intransigence of the new Von der Leyen commission, which is doubling down on the Green Deal’s renewable model. I argue this is not “reindustrializing” Europe or making it “more competitive” as claimed, but rather driving it into deindustrialization. This mirrors the process underway in Germany via its continuing push for new “green tech,” on the theory this should spark a broad new European industrial competitiveness. From an historical perspective, this is theoretical and practical nonsense – or so I argue. Critiques are welcomed. (PS, Happy holidays!)
Leon (moderator): So, I’m going to turn to Thomas again. You argued that that some form of radical overhaul is necessary, you know, with regards to the EU Green Deal, if I understand it correctly, and you’ve cited one of the issues is the complexity of the fact that there are certain technologies that haven’t emerged over the last 30 years that have just been growing incrementally rather than rapidly to meet our needs. But at the same time there’s seems to be some sort of political rationale for why this sort of revolutionary approach. How would you respond to that?
Tom: Yes, politically, I do think the new Commission presents a big problem for European competitiveness, for energy policy and security.
The new commission is anti-energy-policy reform
Firstly this is because Ms. Teresa Ribera, from Spain, is President Von der Leyen’s new chief executive vice-president. She is in charge of attaining both the Green Deal and has also been given responsibility for “industrialization of Europe,” for making it competitive again.
The problem is, Ms. Ribera is a true believer in all-renewable energy systems, I would say a career-long renewable fundamentalist.
For example, she’s said to be so good at negotiating that she managed to get the Spanish nuclear industry and civil society to agree on a timetable to close all the Spanish nuclear power plants, and she’s very proud of this. This is politically and ideologically identical to what Mr. Robert Habeck, the German Green Party leader, who is energy and economics minister, carried out with the approval of Chancellor Scholz of the SPD-party. Habeck closed Germany’s last three nuclear power plants during a wartime, Russian-instigated, European energy crisis.
The fact that Von der Leyen fought hard to appoint Ribera and then put her in charge of the Green Deal and of European industrialization, and made her the most powerful commissioner, the executive vice president of the commission, shows that Von der Leyen, a member of the German conservatives, the CDU, has no interest in reform of the renewables model despite its suffering technological failures on several key aspects.
The problem is not that Europe has not had an industrial policy. Europe has had an industrial policy, one that has failed
I explain EU/German motives for seeking “green H2” import pipes, then (at time 11:30) questions I raised moderating at NAPEC re. EU-Algerian pipeline MOU.
Here’s my video from Oran, Algeria, after a very informative “Africa and Mediterranean Energy & Hydrogen Exhibition & Conference,” NAPEC 2024 (video highlights here). Two parts to my analysis:
First, (up to time 11:30) I explain the rationale and impetus for the EU drive for massive green hydrogen gas imports. This is primarily driven by Germany’s increasing desperation at being locked into over-reliance on weather-variable renewables, whose high prices are sparking its “deindustrialization,” especially after losing Russian gas pipeline imports due to Putin’s war on Ukraine, plus due to the own-goal shutting down of their zero-carbon, amortized (paid for) nuclear plants during the European energy crisis. (Note: I misspoke: “Grey” hydrogen would NOT have the CO2 stored, “Blue” would. Both are derived from natural gas.)
I also explain how this massive green hydrogen “fix” to “renewables fundamentalist” policy is a techno-panacea that simply cannot work. Then ..
ENGLISH Interview | Al Watan, Cairo. Thurs 10Oct24. 15 minutes
ARABIC Interview
At first, we focused on IEA warnings of a possible EU winder gas shortage due to supply-and-demand mismatches. I agree and expand on the IEA points.
Second, I explained that if Israel retaliates against Iran so strongly that it threatens the regimes survival, or is seen as intending to provoke regime change, then the Iranian leadership will have “nothing to lose” by in-turn escalating to the maximum. Aside from unleashing the maximum response of its proxies surrounding Israel, Tehran’s most potent weapon would be to spark a global oil and gas crisis.
Consider oil: Iran can either shut down the Straights of Hormuz (or simply make them unsafe for tankers) and/or, it can use missiles and drones to destroy significant parts of Saudi, UAE and other Gulf oil facilities, including perhaps even Azerbaijan’s as some Iranian propagandists have threatened.
Consider natural gas: Shutting the Straights or directly hitting Qatar’s massive LNG exports infrastructure would immediately stop Qatari LNG exports. As the world’s second largest LNG exporter, this would immediately cause a separate global natural gas crisis.
The Global Barrel 