HOUSTON — The Trump administration reached a nearly $1 billion agreement with French energy giant TotalEnergies on Monday to cancel its offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. The announcement marks the latest blow by the Trump administration against the U.S. offshore wind industry, particularly in the Northeast, after it faced a series of recent legal losses. “The era of taxpayers subsidizing unreliable, unaffordable and unsecured energy is officially over,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. As part of the agreement, the Interior Department would terminate the leases for TotalEnergies’ Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects, worth $928 million, the department said. The lease sales occurred during the Biden administration. TotalEnergies committed to invest the value of those leases into oil and natural gas production in the United States, after which the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar for the amount they paid for the offshore wind leases, the department said. The company is poised to redirect the funds toward the Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas and the development of upstream conventional oil in the Gulf of Mexico and of shale gas production, according to the Interior Department. Burgum and TotalEnergies signed the agreements Monday from the conference. President Donald Trump has often attacked the U.S. offshore wind sector as unreliable and expensive. He’s repeatedly said he plans to have “no windmills built in the United States” under his tenure. Still, the settlement would suggest a new tack by the administration to target the sector. The Trump administration previously issued stop-work orders for offshore wind projects currently under construction on the East Coast, but judges lifted all five orders earlier this year. “Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States, in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees,” TotalEnergies Chair and CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement. Pouyanné previously said the company would halt development of the Attentive Energy project, off the New Jersey and New York coasts, following Trump’s return to the White House. Both the Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects were in the early stages of development. Pouyanné told reporters that the company continues to invest in solar, onshore wind and batteries. The deal is a major blow for New York’s offshore wind targets, although proposed projects in the lease area controlled by TotalEnergies and its partners never secured final contracts with the state. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called the prospect of a deal “not helpful” last week. Attentive Energy dropped out of a bidding process for deals with New York in October 2024, even before Trump’s election. The state concluded that process last month with no awards amid the federal uncertainty and officials have struggled to determine next steps for the industry writ large. Hochul has pivoted to an “all of the above” energy strategy in the face of Trump’s opposition to offshore wind — including nuclear and fossil fuels. Further delays to the development of the technology off New York’s coast will likely further the state’s reliance on repowering fossil fuel plants to serve the New York City region. The deal also leaves New Jersey without any workable offshore wind projects at a time when Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill is already searching for more clean energy to combat a regional power crunch. The project was supposed to provide more than 1,300 megawatts of power. Sherrill’s predecessor, Phil Murphy, had lofty ambitions for the industry that were all for naught. His administration approved a series of offshore wind projects that all ran into financial or permitting challenges. The state approved Attentive Energy’s project in early 2024 as part of an attempted reset of the industry, which was already facing woe. The new affront could also prove problematic to permitting reform discussions on the Hill, as Democratic lawmakers have linked progress on those negotiations to whether or not the administration continues its attacks on renewable energy. ClearView Energy Partners said in a note last week the deal could also “re-raise concerns about the durability of federal approvals and therefore further erode, but not eliminate, the thin opportunity for bipartisan permitting reform on Capitol Hill.” So far, Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is staying the course on permitting talks, despite reports of the settlement agreement last week — a development he derided as “just more selling out the public for the fossil fuel industry.” His office did not immediately provide further comment Monday. Some Moderate New York Republicans last week also criticized the reported settlement. Marie French and Ry Rivard contributed to this report.

HOUSTON — Oil companies and the world’s largest energy consumers face a significant challenge to rebuild global petroleum supply chains and inventories once the critical Strait of Hormuz bottleneck opens, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Monday. “We’ve got a lot of oil and gas now that is not flowing into the market,” Wirth said at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. “Physical supply chains don’t respond immediately, so even if the strait opens at some point, it will take time to rebuild inventories of the right grades of crude and the right types of fuel.” Wirth cautioned that Iran’s attacks on oil tankers and the broader damage of the Middle East war did greater damage to oil and gas markets than the Russia-Ukraine war. Asian nations are running low on diesel and jet fuel. The war has held up deliveries of LNG, fertilizer and other products. Part of the challenge, Wirth said, will be taking a read of the damage. It’s unclear how much production has been shut in, Wirth said, and how badly some facilities were damaged. At the same event, Energy Secretary Chris Wright reiterated to oil executives that he anticipated the global disruption to oil and gas flows would be “short-term,” but he encouraged companies to ramp up production. “Markets do what markets do,” Wright said. “Prices went up to send signals to everyone that can produce more: ‘Please, produce more.’”

BRUSSELS — America’s ambassador to the EU called on the European Parliament to back the trade deal struck with President Donald Trump, arguing it would unlock deeper transtlantic cooperation on energy, tech and AI. Speaking to POLITICO on Monday, Andrew Puzder cautioned that it would be a mistake to allow a further delay of the deal reached last July at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, but has still to be implemented on by the EU side. “All of the signals are good, but you never know. We’re hopeful, but we want to be careful and make sure that we don’t take anything for granted,” Puzder said in an interview at the U.S. mission in Brussels.  “It’s in the best interest of the European Union and the United States that it passes,” he added. “Some people might think that politically, it might give them an advantage to vote against. I hope that’s not the case. But economically, it’d be malpractice not to vote for this in the EU.” Puzder highlighted the importance of the EU’s commitment to spend $750 billion on U.S. energy under the Turnberry deal.  “Europe’s going to need that energy,” he said. “So we need to cut back on the regulatory restrictions to our shipping them the energy and also the regulatory restrictions that make that energy more expensive once it gets here.” IT’S BEEN LONG ENOUGH Puzder, a former fast food executive nominated by Trump, started the role last September and made an early impression in Brussels with his plain speaking. He told POLITICO in December that the EU should stop trying to be the world’s regulator and get on instead with being one of its innovators.  His latest remarks came amid mounting U.S. frustration over the EU’s slow pace in keeping its side of the bargain, under which it would scrap import duties on U.S. industrial goods. The enabling legislation is now up for a plenary vote in the European Parliament on Thursday. If it passes, talks between EU lawmakers, governments and the Commission would then begin on finally implementing the tariff changes. “We’re anxious to get this through the process. We understood they had to go through a process, but it’s been long enough. And hopefully we’ll get through it on Thursday and we can both move on to more economically beneficial endeavors,” Puzder stressed.  Trade lawmakers backed amendments at the committee stage to strengthen the EU’s protections in case Washington doesn’t respect its side of the deal.  They for instance introduced a suspension clause if Trump threatens the EU’s territorial sovereignty, as he did earlier this year when he pushed to annex Greenland. MEPs also added another provision that foresees that the deal would expire in March 2028.  Puzder declined to speculate on whether the deal could unravel altogether if the U.S. president were to launch any renewed threats.  “I hate to prejudge where this is going to go,” he said. “What everybody’s been saying on both sides is a deal is a deal. We had a deal; hopefully we still have a deal.” The ambassador stressed there had been a “very good two-way communication” between Trump’s team of Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and the European Commission, as well as with Bernd Lange, who chairs the European Parliament’s Trade Committee.   “I’ve also had a number of meetings with Bernd Lange and members of parliament on these issues. So the communication has been very good and very open throughout this process,” Puzder said.

BRUSSELS ― Two wars on Europe’s doorstep loomed over a 12-hour summit of EU leaders ― and for very different reasons they found themselves paralyzed rather than able to do much about either. Rarely has the bloc’s inability to take a lead on international affairs been so obvious. Between Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni ― heads of three of the world’s top 10 economies ― and the other 24 in attendance, they could only look the other way, squabble with each other, or offer little but words as the bombing, missile-firing and killing continued. “In these very troubled moments in which we are living, more than ever it’s decisive to uphold the international rules-based order,” European Council President  António Costa, who chaired the gathering in Brussels, told reporters. “The alternative is chaos. The alternative is the war in Ukraine. The alternative is the war in the Middle East.” And that speech was about as far as it went. As Tehran pounded its neighbors, disrupting Europe’s energy supplies, Kyiv attacked Russian factories repairing military planes, and Donald Trump in Washington joked about the Pearl Harbor attack alongside the Japanese prime minister, European leaders used their talks to tinker with the bloc’s carbon permit scheme, the Emissions Trading System. It’s not a wholly unrelated matter to the global energy shock, but hardly an issue where the continent could demonstrate its geopolitical might. On Iran, leaders found they had little leverage or will to make any significant intervention. On Ukraine, more than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion ― a conflict where they do have leverage and they do have will ― they were unable to overcome internal divisions to approve sending €90 billion Kyiv’s way. There was “no willingness to get involved across the table” on the Iran conflict, said a senior European government official, granted anonymity like others quoted in this article to discuss the talks behind closed doors. German Chancellor Merz even complained that focusing on Iran risked shifting attention away from measures to boost Europe’s flagging economy — the summit’s original raison d’être before would affairs got in the way — according to three officials. “The world looked very different at Alden Biesen,” an EU official said, referring to last month’s competitiveness-focused meeting in a Belgian castle that was meant to set the stage for this summit. That was before Iran’s war and Ukraine’s funding dilemma, brought about by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán going back on his promise to approve the loan, radically reshaped the agenda. NOT OUR WAR That’s not to say Iran was ignored completely. There was some renewed discussion about sending French warships to protect the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil transit point that Tehran has effectively shut down by threatening to strike ships, potentially with backing from the U.N. Security Council. “We have begun an exploratory process, and we will see in the coming days if it has a chance of succeeding,” Macron said. But the summit’s final statement stopped short of pledging any new mission, referring only to strengthening existing EU naval operations in the region. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a press conference at the end of the European Council summit on March 19, 2026 in Brussels. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images By the end of the talks, the EU’s leaders reached a sobering conclusion: Europe has little power or inclination to shape events. “Middle East impacts us a lot — but are we a player in the game?” an EU official who was party to the leaders’ discussions asked. “They’re trying to find a place in this debate and we have a lot of statements and positions [but] is there a role for Europeans for solving this process?” Evidently not, according to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who warned leaders that “starting war is like a love affair — it’s easy to get in and difficult to get out,” according to two diplomats briefed on her remarks. Translation: This is not Europe’s war — and it’s not going to be. The EU was left with doing “what we always do,” an EU official said, writing “nice statements.” BURNING GAS FIELDS Europe already angered U.S. President Trump earlier this week when its top envoys rejected his call to secure the Strait of Hormuz. The summit’s final conclusions leaned heavily on familiar calls for “de-escalation” and “restraint,” without proposing concrete action, sticking to that earlier position. That’s despite Qatar warning Thursday it would not be able to fulfill its liquefied natural gas contracts with Belgium and Italy after Iran directed its wrath — and its ballistic missiles — over U.S.-Israeli strikes at the Gulf country, knocking out almost a fifth of its LNG export capacity. Yet rather than grapple head-on with the rapidly expanding energy shock, Europe’s leaders spent hours debating the bloc’s climate policy, including its ETS, which a group of countries are eager to reform. “To say ETS is the biggest issue when big gas fields are burning is a bit weird,” an EU official said. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the consequences of the war extended far beyond the Middle East, adding its most “immediate impact” was on energy supply and prices. She announced a slate of emergency measures to lower costs, from lowering taxes to boosting investment in ETS. ‘JUST CRAZY’ If anything, the summit exposed where the wars in Iran and Ukraine overlap. In what could be his final EU gathering after 16 years if he loses next month’s election, Hungary’s Orbán slammed Europe’s approach to the unfolding energy crisis. “The behavior and the strategy that the Europeans have here is just crazy,” he said — adding the EU needed to buy Russian oil to “survive.” Orbán has blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Kyiv because of a dispute about a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and other central European countries. For that reason, the bloc was similarly unable to offer much more than assurances on the Ukraine war either. Orbán maintained his opposition on Thursday and even won the sympathy of Meloni, who told leaders she understood his position. As frustration inside the room boiled over, many leaders sharply criticized the Hungarian premier, according to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. “I have never heard such hard-hitting criticism of anyone, ever,” he told reporters during a break in the talks. Merz concurred that leaders were “deeply upset” at Orbán. “I am firmly convinced that this will leave a lasting mark,” he said. But the pressure from his peers failed to sway Orbán and questions of the EU loan will roll on to another summit next month ― by which time Hungary could have a new leader, or at least an old one not desperate for votes. On Iran and on Ukraine, the EU didn’t get anywhere. Earlier predictions by diplomats that leaders might continue discussions through the night or even reconvene for a second day as the urgency of a world in turmoil forced them to face up to the challenges before them failed to materialize. Things were done and dusted before midnight. After 12 hours of few decisions, leaders were left with little new to tell people back home. “There are many things worrying about this war” in the Middle East, while Orban’s veto of the loan to Kyiv “is still there and we are extremely unhappy about this, and so of course is Ukraine,” Sweden’s Kristersson told reporters upon leaving the summit. And that was that. Zoya Sheftalovich, Nette Nöstlinger, Nicholas Vinocur, Gerardo Fortuna, Gabriel Gavin, Hans von der Burchard, Sonja Rijnen, Zia Weise, Seb Starcevic, Giorgio Leali, Hanne Cokelaere, Ferdinand Knapp, Milena Wälde, Aude van den Hove, Gregorio Sorgi, Koen Verhelst, Victor Jack, Ben Munster, Jacopo Barigazzi and Bartosz Brzezińksi contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — Europe’s insistence that it doesn’t face an energy supply crisis took a blow Thursday when Qatar warned it would have to scrap contracts with Italy and Belgium following a massive Iranian attack. QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters on Thursday it would have to cancel long-term liquefied natural gas supply contracts for up to five years after an Iranian ballistic missile knocked out a significant share of its production capacity in the Persian Gulf. The state-owned company, which produces a fifth of the world’s LNG, said the damage could impact deliveries to Italy, Belgium, South Korea and China. “These are long-term contracts that we have to declare force majeure,” al-Kaabi said. On Wednesday Iran bombed the Ras Laffan gas plant in Qatar. The ballistic missile attack, which followed an Israeli attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field, caused “sizeable fires and extensive further damage,” QatarEnergy said in a post on X. The strikes damaged two of Qatar’s 14 liquefied natural gas trains and one gas-to-liquids facility, QatarEnergy said Thursday. The outages will remove around 12.8 million tons of LNG annually from the market, roughly 17 percent of Qatar’s total export capacity and around 3 percent of global supply, for an estimated three to five years. The strikes mark a major escalation in regional tensions. Qatar’s LNG plant had already been offline following a previous drone strike, but the latest damage is expected to significantly prolong the disruption. Gas markets reacted sharply on Thursday, with European futures jumping as much as 35 percent to more than double pre-conflict levels, underscoring the risk of a prolonged supply shock. The outage leaves major buyers in Europe and Asia scrambling to replace lost volumes, raising concerns over energy security and the potential for sustained price pressure as competition for alternative LNG cargoes intensifies. NOTHING TO SEE HERE Earlier on Thursday German Energy Minister Katherina Reiche had downplayed the impact of the war, saying: “What we in Europe don’t have is a physical bottleneck.” She insisted the EU’s gas supplies are still flowing from Norway, the U.S., Kazakhstan and other countries. But Reiche said while she doesn’t believe the current situation is as serious as the 2022 shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “the current situation is also causing us concern,” and that it’s critical for Europe to continue to “monitor this crisis and make careful decisions.” Her comments came as EU leaders met for high-level talks in Brussels on Thursday, with energy one of the top issues. In 2022 Germany depended on Russia for more than half of its gas, but now relies on Norway and the Netherlands for the majority, importing some LNG from the U.S. It is not dependent on Qatari LNG. Other EU countries including Poland, Italy and Belgium depend on the Middle East country for a larger percentages of their LNG. Poland said Thursday its gas supplies “are secured,” adding Qatari LNG only accounts for 10 percent of the country’s total gas supply. “[T]his volume can be gradually supplemented with supplies from other sources, if necessary,” said Grzegorz Łaguna, a spokesperson for Poland’s Ministry of Energy. “Deliveries for March are being made, and there is currently no information indicating any significant risks to meeting current demand for natural gas, including the continued restrictions on supplies from Qatar,” he added. The U.K. government and regulators also played down fears of a supply shock. “The U.K. has very strong energy supplies from a diverse range of sources,” said Energy Minister Michael Shanks on Tuesday. But the country has just two days’ worth of gas supplies currently in storage, according to reports based on National Gas data. U.K. Green Party leader Zack Polanski has demanded the government freeze bills in July, when the cap is set to jump hundreds of pounds. Chancellor Rachel Reeves insists support should be “targeted” only at the poorest families, wanting to avoid a rerun of the eye-watering sums spent by the last government to protect all households and businesses after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. India and China’s reliance on disrupted Middle East gas supplies has already caused price hikes and questions about European gas reserves.  “Geopolitics continue shaping gas and LNG markets, and despite the industry’s large scale, it lacks flexibility to absorb major disruptions, creating market volatility,” said Kristy Kramer, head of LNG strategy and market development at Wood Mackenzie. “How the industry responds to this event will vary, but we expect buyers to prioritise LNG supply security with a renewed focus on diversity.”

OSLO — Norway is doubling down on its role as Europe’s energy lifeline as wars and geopolitical turmoil rattle global markets. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the widening conflict in the Middle East, which has already pushed oil prices higher and reduced supply, underscores why Europe needs stable energy partners. “It’s a war that appears to have no plan,” Støre said at the Offshore Norge Annual Conference in Oslo on Thursday, referring to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. “In such unpredictable times, Norway needs to be reliable.” Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Norway has become Europe’s largest pipeline gas supplier, replacing much of the fuel that once flowed from Russia. “All the gas we produce in Norway goes to Europe, and around 90 to 95 percent of oil we produce goes to Europe,” Anders Opedal, chief executive of Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor, told POLITICO. But while Oslo is positioning itself as a pillar of Europe’s energy security, Norwegian officials say the country cannot quickly ramp up production even if geopolitical tensions tighten global supply. Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland said his country is already operating close to maximum output. “We are at the top of production capacity just now,” he told POLITICO. Increasing supply would require new exploration and investment, Aasland said, as his government works to slow an expected decline in production after 2030 by developing additional resources on the Norwegian continental shelf. “Our focus is to be a stable and long and predictable supplier of energy to the European market,” he said. ARCTIC TENSIONS At the same time, Norway is pushing back against calls in Brussels to halt oil and gas development in the Arctic as the EU revises its Arctic strategy. The EU’s current policy commits the bloc to pursuing an international moratorium on Arctic oil and gas extraction, but the strategy is now under review, with a public consultation closing March 16 and a revised version expected before the summer. Norwegian officials, industry groups and unions are lobbying Brussels to drop the idea, arguing Europe will continue to need Norwegian Arctic gas as it phases out Russian supplies. Aasland defended Norway’s record in the region, pointing to the Barents Sea — where the country launched the Johan Castberg oil field last August — as an example of responsible development. “We have delivered oil and gas to the European market from the Arctic for several decades,” he said. “And we will develop it.” Industry leaders say Arctic production already plays a role in replacing Russian supplies. “When we opened the Johan Castberg field last year, the first cargo went straight to Europe, replacing Russian oil,” Opedal said. “Any moratorium here would actually reduce Europe’s security of supply.” Norway supplies roughly a third of EU gas imports, though Arctic gas accounts for a much smaller share, around 3 percent of the bloc’s imports. Still, Norwegian leaders argue a moratorium would send the wrong signal while Europe remains dependent on external energy supplies. Norwegian officials, industry groups and unions are lobbying Brussels to drop the idea, arguing Europe will continue to need Norwegian Arctic gas as it phases out Russian supplies. | Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images Ine Eriksen Søreide, the leader of Norway’s Conservative party, said calls to stop Arctic development clash with Europe’s current energy security priorities. “It sends a very bad signal when the Commission says we need to stop oil and gas development in the Arctic, because that’s development the EU relies on,” she said. Experts say the broader Arctic energy picture is dominated by Russia, which has major plans to expand liquefied natural gas production through projects such as Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2. Malte Humpert, founder and senior fellow at the Arctic Institute, said climate change is rapidly transforming the once-inaccessible region. “If we didn’t have climate change, we wouldn’t be talking about Arctic geopolitics,” he told POLITICO. “Climate change is actively reshaping the map, where suddenly there’s new trade routes available that didn’t exist even 10, 15 years ago.” OIL AND GAS AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE FOR NOW Across Oslo’s political spectrum, the message is broadly the same: Europe still needs reliable fossil fuel suppliers, and Norway intends to remain one of them. Opposition leader Sylvi Listhaug of the right-wing Progress Party argued Europe should encourage Norway to produce more oil and gas to reduce reliance on authoritarian regimes. “The more Norway can produce of gas, the less dependent Europe will be” on non-democratic producers, she said. Ine Eriksen Søreide, the leader of Norway’s Conservative party, said calls to stop Arctic development clash with Europe’s current energy security priorities. | Pool photo by Olivier Doulier/AFP via Getty Images Listhaug also warned that high energy prices risk undermining European competitiveness. “Energy and economic growth are a one-to-one relationship,” she said. Even as Norway expands renewables, leaders insist fossil fuels will remain crucial to Europe’s energy system during the long transition to cleaner alternatives. “We have to have two thoughts in our heads at the same time,” Aasland said.

President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran has Washington’s Asian allies scrambling to address an energy crisis that could destabilize many of their economies within weeks. And so far their appeals for guidance or assistance from the Trump administration are going unheeded. Asian countries are some of the most exposed to the energy crisis sparked by the Iran war because they rely heavily on oil and liquefied natural gas that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively ground to a halt since the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran two weeks ago. In that time, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and others have struggled to decode Trump’s yo-yoing statements about the goals of the operation and when it will end, according to three Asian officials and one former U.S. official who were granted anonymity to discuss the tensions. “We’re not receiving any communication from the Trump administration,” said one of the people, a Washington-based Asia diplomat. Asked what the Trump administration could do, the person said, “Ideally, just end the conflict.” Another one of the officials from an Asian country pointed out that there are actions short of that that the U.S. could take to ease the pressure on energy markets, such as enlisting other countries to participate in its effort to guarantee insurance for tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration has given no indication that it plans to take such actions. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday its member countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency stocks in the largest such reserves distribution in its history, but it’s unclear how much this will ease the pressure on Asian countries. Many Asian economies lack large domestic reserves and are thus particularly exposed to price spikes and supply disruptions. “Our oil reserves are enough for about one month of domestic consumption,” the Washington-based Asian diplomat said. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Washington’s attacks on Iran’s navy should assuage concerns about the safety of ships transiting the Strait, but that does not to appear to have done much to ease jitters. The second Asian official said some of Trump’s comments suggesting he is digging in for a long conflict are ratcheting up concern. His country’s alarm level will be dictated, “by how long this goes on,” the official said. Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. has hit a significant number of Iranian military targets and suggested the war could be over quickly. He has also said it could take four to six weeks, but has also called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” which could take much longer. Countries across the Indo-Pacific are taking measures to limit the impact of a looming cut in oil and gas from the Persian Gulf if supplies don’t resume in the next two weeks. The Philippines and Vietnam have revived Covid-era work-from-home directives to ease consumer demand for gasoline. India has imposed a 20 percent cut in LNG supply to the country’s industrial sector, New Delhi announced Wednesday. The Japanese government announced Wednesday it will release some of its strategic petroleum reserves to compensate for a shortfall in imports. The U.S. could see long term effects of leaving its Asian allies to fend on their own. “Foreign embassies need and expect information that explains what the U.S. is doing, reassurance that this is a short-term problem and what our plan is to help,” said Scot Marciel, former principal deputy assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the Obama administration. “Not doing that just adds to a pretty strong sense in the region that the administration is not really making a lot of effort to be a good partner.” The White House said allies will ultimately benefit from what is a temporary disruption. “President Trump has been clear that these are short-term disruptions,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. “President Trump is in close contact with our partners around the world, and the terrorist Iranian regime’s attacks on its neighbors prove how imperative it was that President Trump eliminate this threat to our country and our allies.” The Trump administration has limited options to cushion the impact of the supply interruption on the economies of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. An oil commodity trader at a major U.S. investment bank said America’s LNG production is already running at maximum and there is no emergency flex capacity that American producers can bring to bear to supply Asia. “There is no short term, immediate thing that the U.S. can do for Asia — there is no pipeline or trucking that can get more gas from here to there,” said the trader, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. Last week the Trump administration said it would temporarily allow India to accept Russian oil. India, a larger refiner, also supplies petroleum products like gasoline and diesel fuel to other Asian countries. Asian countries are competing with each other as they try to pivot to other sources of oil and gas. The jockeying is hitting the wall of recent restrictions on output by regional refineries due to the lack of crude oil coming from the Persian Gulf. China could potentially wrangle a short-term easing in supply constraints in Asia if it taps its close ties with Tehran to ensure that China-bound cargoes pass through the Strait of Hormuz unmolested by Iranian forces. Those shipments may already be happening, according to CNBC reporting Tuesday. Trump has spent the past week attempting to cool nerves in the global energy market, as the price of oil has spiked by more than 29 percent since the U.S. and Israel first launched attacks on Iran. “I think you’re going to see great safety. We have decimated that country. They’re paying a big price now,” Trump said Wednesday, responding to a question about whether oil companies should transit the Strait. But Iran has continued to hit ships in the vital waterway. On Wednesday “unknown projectiles” hit and sparked a fire on a Thai cargo vessel in the Strait while two other ships were hit in the nearby Persian Gulf, the New York Times reported. The leaders of G7 countries — which includes Japan — agreed in a call on Wednesday to prepare for future freedom of navigation operations though such efforts are not possible now “as it remains an active theater of war,” according to a French account of the discussion. While the U.S. has been concerned that Iran has begun to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Wednesday the U.S. believes Iran hasn’t yet done so. He said the U.S. has hit 28 mine-laying ships. Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will have the chance to raise her concerns and others on the continent when she arrives in Washington next week for a summit with Trump that was planned before the war broke out but has taken on new meaning amid the turmoil. “The president made a decision on Iran without consulting allies, and they’re bearing the brunt of it. So the president obviously needs to appreciate the cost that Japan will bear” when he meets with Takaichi next week, Rahm Emanuel, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, said.

A week after it began its strikes on Iran, the Trump administration’s efforts to stem the rise in energy prices have yet to turn the tide — and analysts warn the worst of the price shocks may still be to come. The U.S. benchmark oil price eclipsed $90 a barrel on Friday for the first time since 2023, up more than $20 since the war began Saturday and the market’s highest one-week jump in history. The price increase has already started to appear for American consumers, with prices at the gas pump up 32 cents a gallon from a week ago. The unyielding price increases — which analysts attributed to the continued disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s crude passes each day — comes as President Donald Trump is under rising pressure to contain the economic impact of the war on Americans, eight months ahead of the midterms, where affordability issues are top of mind. “Crude WILL go to $200 [a barrel], en route higher, unless traffic through the Strait resumes,” said Rory Johnston, an oil analyst who writes the newsletter Commodity Context, in a post on X. “Not clickbait, but rather brutal physics and necessary economic incentives.” The White House has announced several measures aimed at calming the oil markets this week, including temporarily easing sanctions on India’s purchase of Russian oil and offering naval escorts and political risk insurance to oil and gas tankers traversing the Strait of Hormuz. None of those measures has succeeded, however, as traders boost prices on news of disruptions to supply. Iran has succeeded in damaging several oil tankers, Iraq and Kuwait have already throttled oil production because their crude tankers can no longer get to market, and China has warned it could stop exporting fuel amid supply concerns. The longer that ships avoid the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf countries will start to run out of storage capacity and be forced to shut in their production, said Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at research firm Rystad Energy. “If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for, let’s say, three weeks, then you will have shut in 15 million barrels a day of production in the Middle East,” Galimberti said at a Rystad conference in Washington on Thursday. “That takes us from a position of comfortable oversupply as of [last] Friday to one of incredible deficit, the size of which we’ve never seen.” Galimberti noted that oil may be slow to flow even if shipping traffic resumes, given the difficult and expensive processes required to restart production. “If it’s shut for weeks or months, then it’s going to take weeks and probably months to bring it back to the same level,” he said. Still, the administration has said it sees little cause for long-term alarm. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Friday morning that Americans should expect gas prices to come down again soon. “It’s weeks, I would say, in the worst case,” Wright told Fox News. “It’s weeks, not months.” Wright acknowledged that prices are “more than we’d like them to be,” but noted they remain far lower than the record levels hit after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during the Biden administration, when global crude supplies were much tighter. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that record U.S. oil production, new supplies from Venezuela and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will keep a lid on prices. “President Trump’s entire energy team, from the White House to the National Energy Dominance Council to Secretaries Wright and Bessent, have a game plan to keep oil prices stable throughout Operation Epic Fury,” Leavitt said. Market analysts are painting a much more dire picture of the situation, however. Six days into the conflict, oil and gas tankers remain largely unwilling to transit the strait, cutting off a key supply route between major oil producers in the Gulf and their customers in Asia and beyond. Even with the price increases this week, markets may not be pricing in the true impact of an extended closure of the strait, said Andon Pavlov, director of oil and tanker research at commodity tracking firm Kpler. “There is a widespread expectation across the market that the alternative of not opening the Strait of Hormuz is just so apocalyptically bad that eventually something will happen,” he said in a Thursday webinar. “Is it going to happen? Every day makes it less and less likely.” Even if the Trump administration can get the price of oil under control, that does not guarantee that the price of gasoline comes down with it, said Catherine Wolfram, a former deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy economics at the Treasury Department. “Economists talk about what’s called rockets and feathers — that gas prices go up like rockets when oil prices go up, but then if oil prices go back down … they go back down like feathers,” said Wolfram, who is now a professor of energy economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “Especially if you’re coming into the period when [gas prices] tend to rise because of summer driving, they might just stay high, even if oil prices go back down,” she said. The Development Finance Corporation announced new details Friday on the insurance program aimed at getting tankers moving again, which it said would cover losses up to $20 billion. “We are confident that our reinsurance plan will get oil, gasoline, LNG, jet fuel, and fertilizer through the Strait of Hormuz and flowing again to the world,” DFC CEO Ben Black said in a statement. Ben Cahill, an oil analyst and nonresident fellow at Arab Gulf States Institute, said the insurance backstop does not alleviate the fear of being attacked by Iranians, who are “obviously desperate and backed into a corner.” “The measures taken could alleviate some of the risks and maybe drive down some of the costs associated with shipping insurance, but the fundamental problem is still there,” he said. In order to get shipping moving again, “you need a fundamental change in the trajectory of the conflict,” Cahill added. Wright acknowledged in an interview with ABC News on Thursday night that shipping companies have not been willing to transit the strait even with U.S.-backed insurance. “Right now, the biggest issue is just physical security,” he said. “You don’t want to run a large tanker ship through the Strait of Hormuz today, but that’ll change in the not too distant future.” Wright said the U.S. military would begin providing escorts to oil tankers “as quickly as we can,” but its immediate focus was on suppressing Iranian attacks. “First we’ve got to get their ability to cause trouble way down, and then as soon as it’s reasonable to do it, we’ll escort ships through the straits and get the energy moving again,” he said.

President Donald Trump once won the loyalty of his base by promising no new wars. That promise now rings hollow for many, especially after his decision to strike Iran last week. Since the attacks began Saturday, six U.S. service members have been killed. Oil prices are rising. Gulf states are fielding Iranian counterattacks. It is a striking escalation by a president who seems increasingly emboldened by a series of successful military attacks since his return to the Oval Office. As the Middle East tumbles into uncertainty, it’s unclear what the administration’s endgame is, who Iran’s next successor could be or even when the war might end. To get a better understanding of how things might unfold, we convened a roundtable of top POLITICO reporters who cover the White House and Trump’s foreign policy — and have been closely following the administration’s moves. The discussion featured defense reporter Paul McLeary, White House reporter Diana Nerozzi, diplomatic correspondent Felicia Schwartz and energy reporter James Bikales. The group discussed the United States’ diminishing weapons stockpile, responses from ally countries and the political implications of starting yet another war in the Middle East eight months before the midterm elections. Here’s what they shared. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Eight months ago, the U.S. struck Iran, and here we are again. What’s different about the administration in 2026 and the recent attacks it is carrying out now? Paul McLeary: Unlike the first Trump administration, which was filled with people he didn’t know or trust, this time around it is stacked with Trump loyalists who have a good understanding of how he operates. They’re moving fast on international issues because they know his time is limited by the midterms and are embracing the fact that presidents may be constrained by courts and Congress at home, but can act as they see fit overseas. Felicia Schwartz: I think they are also very inspired by past successes. At the end of Trump’s first term, he killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qassem Soleimani — something the so-called foreign policy blob and regional allies warned would inflame the Middle East. He got the same feedback about his plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy, which he did in 2018 without major blowback. Add to that what he and his team see as the success of the Venezuela operation, and you have a very emboldened president who likes to wield power militarily. Diana Nerozzi: I agree. Trump is facing his last term as president and is feeling inspired by his successful capture of Maduro. The administration sees Iran as the number one sponsor of global terror, and taking out the Iranian government cripples their connections with foreign adversaries like Russia and China. Trump has spoken about his desire to leave a global mark and foreign policy legacy, and regime change in Iran would contribute to that greatly. James Bikales: On the energy side of things, the administration feels it has a little more leeway to act in ways that could disrupt the global oil market because the U.S. has cemented its place as a net crude exporter in the last few years. That’s helped keep oil prices lower and more stable since Trump took office, even with the conflicts in the Middle East and Venezuela. On the other hand, Trump has been laser-focused on keeping gas prices low — and the attack on Iran certainly won’t help with that. On that note, James, how soon are gas prices going to be affected by the conflict? What’s the worst-case scenario, and how would that occur? Bikales: It really depends on how long this conflict lasts. The main issue driving up oil prices has been the disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of global crude flows pass through every day. We’ve already seen oil prices jump significantly over the past few days as a result, and it won’t be long until that starts showing up for American consumers at the gas pump. Some analysts have predicted that if the conflict lasts more than three or four weeks, we could see triple-digit oil prices — which would be a major shock to the system and have a lot of cascading effects. Diana, the administration’s messaging has been muddled, with officials offering a range of rationales for starting the war now, from nuclear weapons to Iran’s crackdown on democracy to payback for the 1979 hostage crisis. Why has the administration’s messaging been so haphazard? Nerozzi: The reason for the apparent mixed messages is the variety of voices who are speaking on the rationale. There is the president, who has been very open to reporters’ questions, but with that openness comes a lot of different answers. Then there is Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and other administration officials. The reason is all of those combined. But more immediately, the administration argues the attacks were launched because of the refusal of Iran to negotiate honestly about nuclear weapons. Two administration officials went into detail yesterday about how the Iranians were “playing games” in negotiations, were really hiding nuclear material further underground, and were not going to come to the table honestly. That, coupled with the crackdown on protests and Iran’s hostile actions towards the U.S. over the past decades, pushed Trump over the edge. McLeary: The Iran attacks are also another way to undo what Republicans see as the signature disaster of the Obama years — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal with Iran. Trump has made it a priority to unwind virtually everything that Obama and Biden pushed through during their terms. Schwartz: I thought it was interesting that the administration chose not to go on the Sunday shows or do the usual things like a live prime-time address to justify the action to the nation. Seemed like they acted first, then worked on the messaging. And it’s shifted as Congress, the public and the Republican base have reacted to it. Secretary Rubio, for example, said that the U.S. assessed that its assets in the Middle East would be attacked if Israel were to go ahead, and Israel was planning to go ahead, so it may as well join. But the perception that Israel dragged Trump into war hasn’t played well. Felicia and Diana, do we know who has influenced Trump most on Iran? Is it someone in the administration, like Rubio or Hegseth? Or is it someone outside, like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Schwartz: Our reporting and that of our colleagues suggest that Netanyahu did have a big influence. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a longtime Iran hawk, has been pressing Trump on this since he returned to office. I think the Venezuela success, that there was a model for something resembling regime change, helped to push him over the line. The U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was also a strong proponent. On top of that, while there were not many other loud cheerleaders, none of the national security team was lobbying hard against it. Nerozzi: The administration has been very careful to not reveal who exactly is in Trump’s ear on Iran. Trump has a very close relationship with Netanyahu, and the U.S. has been working side-by-side with Israel on the attacks, so the prime minister did play a role. But I believe Trump had his sights set on Iran from the beginning, and the actions of the Iranians in the negotiations and killing protesters made Trump irate enough to pull the trigger. Who are the top succession candidates in Iran right now? Does the White House have its eye on anyone, especially since Trump has said the people the administration had in mind were killed in the strikes? Schwartz: While the situation is still fluid, the son of the now deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has emerged as a frontrunner to replace his father. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is known for having close ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. Other candidates that have emerged include Alireza Arafi, part of the current transition council named in the elder Khamenei’s absence, and Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution that established the Islamic Republic. The administration and Israel are hoping that by targeting Iranian security forces and regime targets, they can create the conditions for a different kind of government to take the place of the current system. But the regime still controls the military and the weapons, so that is very unlikely. Nerozzi: Trump has refused to say whether the U.S. has anyone in mind as a successor, which leads me to believe they are not in that point of thinking quite yet. He said he is open to Reza Pahlavi in response to a reporter’s question. But the general response from the administration has been that the leaders they had in mind have been killed, and that the main focus right now is to take out the Iranian military. Some Pentagon officials were worried about dwindling weapons stockpiles even before the attack. Paul, at what point could this deplete munitions enough to make the U.S. more vulnerable? McLeary: The munitions being used are expensive and take months to make, and while the stockpiles are deep, they’re not unlimited as Trump and Hegseth have indicated over the past several days. There’s little capacity for the defense industry to ramp up production any time soon — workforce issues and thin supply chains make a quick ramp-up almost impossible. The U.S. can handle a campaign like this for several weeks before it becomes a major issue. The worry is that precision bombs meant to be sold to allies would suffer first, if the Pentagon wanted to redirect them back to its own warehouses. That could cause a major break with key NATO allies who are already looking for alternatives to the U.S. defense industry. European allies don’t seem sure what to think about this war. Do you think they will oppose it, sit on the sidelines or eventually get behind it, Felicia? And how are U.S. allies in the Middle East responding? Is there some discomfort among Arab states with being on the same side of a war as Israel? Schwartz: No one in Europe is sad to see the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many governments there share Washington’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies. They would have preferred to see the U.S. deal with this diplomatically, as these governments are generally more cautious than Trump is, and they are closer to Iran than we are and might feel the fallout more quickly. That being said, once Iran responded so forcefully and began hitting civilian targets throughout the Gulf, where many European citizens live and do business and many countries have military assets, they have generally supported the U.S. campaign. As for the Middle East, their discomfort isn’t about being on the same side as Israel. Many of these countries have had strong intelligence and military relationships with Israel for years, drawn together by the common threat of Iran. Some countries, like the UAE and Bahrain, have formalized and publicized these ties. Their unease is that Iran is targeting their people and infrastructure, and they worry about their own ability to defend themselves in a prolonged war. Unlike Israel, which has sirens and shelters, these countries don’t have any warning systems or protections for the public. And they are worried about their own air defense supplies. Nerozzi: In the Middle East, Iran striking neighboring Arab nations could be an opportunity for the U.S. to form stronger alliances with those who were critical of the strikes on Iran. The Arab nations are being brought into the war via the Iranian counterstrikes, and the Gulf states are finding themselves being directly impacted by Iran. Bikales: European countries are also very concerned about the impact of the war on energy prices — they remember well the impacts of the price shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just a few years ago. We’ve already seen natural gas prices skyrocket in parts of Europe after Qatar shut down some of its LNG export facilities, so that’s just another reason Europe wants this fighting over quickly. But Trump has said the military campaign against Iran could last four to five weeks, even longer. Does the U.S. have an endgame? If so, what is it? Nerozzi: Trump gave the four-to-five-week deadline. Today, Pete Hegseth said, “We are just getting started.” There is no stated endgame 100 percent, but Hegseth said the U.S. and Israel are targeting Iranian military generals and are “finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military.” At the end of the day, the U.S. has been firm that they don’t want to see Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, so the end may come when they feel satisfied enough with the destruction of the Iranian military and their enriched uranium. McLeary: Defense officials have so far outlined tactical successes and goals like taking out the Iranian Navy and ballistic missile sites and nuclear facilities, but we haven’t heard anything about the “day after” if the Iranian regime is to collapse. Destroying the Iranian ability to strike outside its borders is a goal, but without a larger strategic vision of what they want Iran to look like going forward, those goals don’t necessarily solve the larger issues of having a hostile regime in power in Tehran. Schwartz: When Trump first announced the campaign, he talked about regime change. That’s now more of a nice-to-have. As the administration has refined its message, officials have described Iran’s ballistic and other advanced missiles as a shield that it is building up rapidly and would eventually prevent the U.S. from doing anything about its nuclear program. So they want to eliminate Iran’s missile program, destroy its navy so it can’t harass American and other vessels at sea and end their support for proxies. But in terms of what should Iran look like next year, what role should it play in the region and other long-term strategic objectives, those are unclear. And while the regime is at its weakest point, it continues to have a monopoly on weapons and violence. That will be hard for the U.S. to destroy from the air. On Diana’s point about enriched uranium, that is another one they have not really spelled out how they will address. They did what they could militarily to target Iran’s nuclear program last June. All of Iran’s enriched uranium is buried under rubble. I think on that point, they want to pressure Iran to do what it hasn’t so far accepted: commit to zero enrichment and ship all of its remaining enriched material out of the country. Bikales: We’ve reported that the Trump administration went into the conflict with little plan to deal with the ensuing oil price spike. Essentially, they hoped the conflict would be over quickly, and prices would fall back naturally. In the last couple of days, they’ve had to scramble to start putting together a plan to calm the markets. In some ways, that gives Iran an opening. Tehran knows that President Trump is very focused on lowering prices at the pump, especially ahead of the midterms, so it could use oil prices as leverage to force his hand in potentially ending the war. James, speaking of oil, Iran has said it has closed the Strait of Hormuz. Is that possible? And what are the implications of making it challenging to travel through? Is there a workaround? Bikales: The short answer is no. Iran has fairly limited naval capabilities, especially after the initial wave of U.S. strikes, so it hasn’t mined or physically closed the strait in any way. That being said, it has warned ships not to try to transit it, and it has fired on some tankers, which has led insurance companies to cancel coverage and hike rates, essentially bringing traffic through the strait to a halt. The Trump administration announced a plan Tuesday to offer naval escorts and government risk insurance to those tankers, and we will be watching in the coming days whether that gets shipping moving again. One important thing to note: Iran itself exports much of the crude it produces through the Strait of Hormuz, so shutting it down could hurt its own economy — as well as that of its primary customer, China. Schwartz: I am very curious to see how the market will react to the government provision of insurance for ships, and whether it will make a real dent, given the environment. Bikales: It’s certainly a creative strategy from a U.S. perspective, but even with insurance, I’m not sure I would want my ship trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz right now if I were a ship owner. McLeary: Iran does possess the capability to mine the Strait or use drones to harass ships passing through it. If they launched a drone swarm at an American warship, it would be difficult for the ship’s air defenses to knock multiple drones down at once. So the situation remains incredibly dangerous and uncertain. Paul, the White House has pushed back on the language around this military operation. Is the U.S. in a war? And how does this military campaign in Iran affect Trump’s avowed goal of focusing more on the Western Hemisphere, like Venezuela and Cuba? Schwartz: Time to cue the meme, it’s only a war if it’s from the war region of France. McLeary: The war question is much like the Department of Defense rebranding itself as the Department of War! Call it what you want, but shooting at another country is an act of war, full stop. As far as the Western Hemisphere goes, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group — which was pulled from the Mediterranean in October to head to the Caribbean — is back in the Mediterranean, along with its destroyer escort ships. One can argue that those ships were never needed to intercept speedboats, but one can also argue that moving the ships away from the Caribbean undercuts the recently released National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy, which gave scant attention to the Middle East in favor of the Western Hemisphere and a homeland security focus. In the end, strategy papers are just that — pieces of paper — once a president casts his gaze elsewhere. Schwartz: There are 50,000 American troops in the Middle East right now, and six have died so far. And Trump has told us to expect more of that. I think the average person sees this as a war, whatever the administration wants to call it. This all means a lot is at stake for the GOP right now: Trump’s approval ratings are poor, the attacks are fairly unpopular and midterms are coming. How do you think this will play out politically for Republicans? Democrats? Nerozzi: Polls are showing that the majority of Americans disapprove of the strikes, but a large majority of Republicans, around 75 percent, are in support. The GOP is going into the midterms with a disadvantage due to being the incumbent. The outcome of the war in the next few months may sway public opinion to be more in favor of the war, but it could also push voters away, especially if things go south. Trump will have to deliver internationally and domestically for Republicans to surge ahead and keep both the Senate and House. Schwartz: Voters rarely vote primarily on foreign policy, but drawn-out wars or the rising prices from them contribute heavily to the vibes leading into the election and how people feel about the direction of the country. If Trump can keep this to a few weeks and the fallout minimal, maybe it will be a blip that won’t carry through to the midterms. It could also present Democrats with an opportunity to curry favor with voters if gas prices climb further upward and inflation gets worse as a result. McLeary: War is always unpredictable. Americans tend to rally around the flag in times of conflict, even if we haven’t seen that happen yet in the case of Iran. Part of the reason is that the White House simply hasn’t bothered to make the case to the American people. That said, think back to George W. Bush winning re-election in 2004 when Iraq was going terribly and dozens of troops were being killed by roadside bombs every month while fighting — yes — Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. A lot will depend on how quickly Trump can get out of the fight. I don’t sense a lot of patience for a long war launched by a president who campaigned on “no new wars.” Bikales: President Trump has made energy affordability a key piece of his message heading into the midterms — in fact, just a few hours ahead of the strikes, he was in Corpus Christi, Texas, touting record U.S. oil production and lower prices at the pump. Democrats see an opening on that issue now with Iran, and they’ve already launched attacks that Trump is more focused on foreign wars than keeping energy prices down. So far, Republicans have largely dismissed those concerns, saying that prices will fall back naturally. But even if global crude prices fall, gas prices tend to be slower to recover — and we’re only eight months from the midterms.

BRUSSELS — Qatar’s huge state-owned gas company halted production of liquefied natural gas on Monday in the wake of Iranian attacks on key energy infrastructure, sending gas prices skyrocketing and compounding fears of an energy crisis. QatarEnergy accounts for nearly 20 percent of the global LNG trade, and is the fourth largest supplier of LNG to the EU, accounting for 6 percent of the bloc’s total intake. The benchmark LNG price in Europe soared as much as 25 percent after QatarEnergy announced it had “ceased production of … LNG and associated products” following military attacks on operating facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City and Mesaieed Industrial City. A prolonged closure of the massive plant in the Persian Gulf would have a major impact on global supply of the fossil fuel used in electricity generation, heating buildings and powering industry. It follows U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran which began over the weekend. EU member countries were already jittery about the prospect of airstrikes on energy facilities in the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for seaborne shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas from Gulf states. All Qatari LNG passes through the Strait of Hormuz. EU countries already kicked off 2026 with lower gas reserves than in recent years, with 46 billion cubic metres at the end of February 2026, down from 60 billion cubic meters in 2025, according to Bruegel.