The Energy Empire Was Built Before the War That Saved It

By December 2025, the plan was coming apart. A global glut of oil and gas was pushing European energy costs down and squeezing American exports; China had stopped buying US LNG altogether; and the International Energy Agency was projecting a structural oversupply of 5.7 million barrels a day ^[1]. The market was doing the opposite of what the administration had spent the year building toward. What it had built was already complete. In July 2025 the EU signed a trade deal committing to $750 billion in American energy purchases by 2028 ^[2]. That same month, Asian governments began buying US LNG specifically to narrow trade deficits and dodge tariffs ^[3]. In August, Trump announced the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be refilled with Venezuelan crude ^[4]. In January, an executive order had opened Alaska's North Slope, drawing $164 million in federal lease bids from ConocoPhillips, Shell, ExxonMobil and Santos ^[5]. By September, ExxonMobil was lining up multi-decade supply contracts with European buyers ^[6]. The architecture was finished. The market just wouldn't cooperate. Then, on February 28, 2026, the war with Iran began, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz took roughly 10 million barrels a day out of global supply. US gasoline rose $1.25 a gallon — 44% between February and August ^[7][8]. The glut that had been undercutting the strategy evaporated, and every component of the pre-built machine suddenly had a reason to run. The sharpest mechanism is the double-blind. The blockade has nearly ceased Iranian oil shipments to Asia, trapping loaded tankers in the Gulf ^[8]. The crude that fills the gap is Venezuelan — and access to it runs through Washington. India's ONGC received a Treasury OFAC license to expand its Venezuela operations, making India the second-largest buyer of Venezuelan crude after the US ^[9]. A buyer who wants the barrels that replace the barrels the US removed has to ask the US first. The pattern repeats across Asia: Trump imposed 50% punitive tariffs on Indian goods over Russian oil imports, cut them to 18% after a deal with Modi, and the US ambassador confirmed India is now buying more American energy ^[10]. The coercion is stated outright. Ambassador Andrew Puzder told the European Parliament what happens if the $750 billion Turnberry deal isn't ratified.

If Turnberry is not implemented, we are back to square one. — Andrew Pazder

The strategy has a name now: Operation Epic Fury, with the stated goal of shifting global oil flows from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico and gaining "U.S. control over the marginal barrel of oil" ^[11]. Tanker traffic to the US through the Gulf of Mexico is already up 50% month over month. The targets have noticed. German Environmental Aid reports 96% of Germany's LNG imports in 2025 came from the US ^[12]. Sascha Müller-Kraenner named it plainly.

Donald Trump is deliberately using gas deliveries to push Europe and Germany into a fatal dependence on fossil fuels. — Sascha Muller-Kraenner

Canada's energy minister Tim Hodgson answered with a vow.

What has made the situation more serious and complex is the strained relationship to the U.S. and the fact that we have an American president that does not exclude using force against Greenland. — Dan Jørgensen

Russia's foreign minister, from the other side, described the same machine.

They are trying to ban India and our other partners from buying cheap, affordable Russian energy resources (Europe has long been banned), and are forcing them to buy US LNG at exorbitant prices. — Sergey Lavrov

Then the contradiction at the center of it. On July 7, Trump ordered a DOJ investigation into oil companies for price-gouging, demanding pump prices fall to $2.25–$2.50 a gallon — even as ExxonMobil projected $15.9 billion in second-quarter income, its best since 2022 ^[13]. The president is investigating the companies for the spike his own war caused. And the longer risk. China has cut oil imports by 3 million barrels a day through electric vehicles and high-speed rail ^[14]. Meanwhile US-aligned nations are signing 20-year fossil-fuel contracts — Japan's JERA alone locked in 5.5 million tons a year of American gas for two decades ^[3]. The strategy is winning the dependency it was built to create, against buyers who are already leaving the market. Allies are being locked into decades of fossil commitments at the exact moment the one competitor that matters is electrifying its way out of oil entirely. The machine works. What it is winning is the question the architecture can't answer.