Donald Trump’s repeated mantra of “drill, baby, drill” demands that more oil and gas be extracted in the United States, but the president has set his sights on an even broader goal: keeping the world hooked on planet-heating fossil fuels for as long as possible.
In deals being formulated with countries such as Japan and Ukraine, Trump is using US leverage in tariffs and military aid to bolster the flow of oil and gas around the world. In Africa, his administration has even touted the resurrection of coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, to bring energy to the continent.
“We’ve had years of western countries shamelessly saying: ‘Don’t develop coal, coal is bad,’” said Chris Wright, the US energy secretary, last week. Such an attitude has been “paternalistic” and counterproductive for Africa, he added. “That’s just nonsense, 100% nonsense,” Wright said. “Coal transformed our world and made it better.”
Wright built on this theme on Monday at the CeraWeek oil industry conference in Houston, Texas, where he said the world needed more, rather than less, fossil fuels. He also attacked Joe Biden for “irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change” and claimed “there is no physical way” renewables such as solar and wind could replace fossil fuels – a view disputed by experts.
This vision of a world wedded long-term to fossil fuels could spur greater US backing for drilling in Africa, delighting business interests that claim oil and gas are the answer to bringing power to the 600 million people on the continent who lack electricity.
“With President Trump’s rollbacks of restrictions, there will be new opportunities for US investors to engage with Africa’s oil and gas sector,” said Robert Stryk, chair of Stryk Global Diplomacy, a consultancy helping the African Energy Chamber facilitate US-funded oil and gas projects in Africa. “It has the potential to unlock real benefits for African nations. Secretary Wright made a powerful statement. It was a genius move.”
Stryk said it was “hypocritical” for western countries to demand Africa forgo fossil fuels after powering their own economies on coal, oil and gas. “Let Africa choose its own destiny,” he said. “People talk about renewables, but it’s hollow. It just keeps people where they are there, which is in poverty.”
Scientists have made clear that the climate crisis, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, poses catastrophic risks around the world, particularly in poorer African countries that have emitted a small fraction of planet-heating pollution. Africa is heating up faster than the global average and is already suffering from worsening floods, heatwaves and droughts, with countries there losing up to 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) responding to climate extremes.
“One of the transformations caused by American fossil fuels was destroying our previously well-balanced climate and plunging some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Africa into a life dealing with extreme weather and lost homes and livelihoods,” said Mohamed Adow, founder and director of Power Shift Africa.
“It’s a sign of huge ignorance that the US energy secretary is talking up coal, but it’s also obvious lobbying on behalf of the US fossil fuel companies which backs Republican politicians.”
Adow said Africa does require assistance from wealthy countries such as the US to build out renewable energy. However, richer nations have long lagged in providing the required finance and Trump has imposed further cuts, axing an initiative to help shift developing countries to clean energy, halting American aid to countries vulnerable to extreme weather and pulling the US from the Paris climate agreement.
“So they have no moral authority to dictate to Africa on the development approach to pursue,” Adow said of the US. “African leaders must choose a path that helps secure energy access and the economic wellbeing of their people. Exacerbating the climate crisis that their people are suffering from would be the opposite of this and undo the development gains of recent years.”
While the world is shifting towards cleaner forms of power, albeit too slowly to stave off worsening climate impacts, Trump has sought to entrench the status quo of fossil fuels. The president lifted a Biden-era pause on exports of American gas, and Japan and South Korea have expressed interest in investing in an Alaska gas project, in part to avoid the threat of tariffs from Trump.
“Japan will soon begin importing historic new shipments of clean American liquefied natural gas (LNG) in record numbers,” the president said last month. “It’ll be record numbers.”
Last month, Shigeru Ishiba, the Japanese prime minister, met with Trump at the White House and announced plans for Japan to import more LNG from Freeport, Texas. Manning Rollerson, an environmental justice activist from Freeport, said the US exporting LNG abroad harms communities like his.
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“People are being poisoned,” Rollerson said at a protest outside CeraWeek on Monday. “We got babies being born sick, and our economy is in the tank.”
In 2022, a major explosion and fire occurred at the Freeport LNG natural gas export terminal, causing a temporary shutdown and sending pollutants into the air. This highlighted the dangers of the fuel, Rollerson said.
Before the meeting between Ishiba and Trump, Rollerson travelled to Japan to meet with officials and encourage them not to make a “deal with the devil”.
“I invited the Japanese government to come look at Freeport and see what 57 years of industrial build-out … has done for this city,” he said. “It’s not pretty.”
Meanwhile, a deal under negotiation with Ukraine would give the US access to the country’s store of minerals, which includes oil and gas but also materials such as graphite, used in batteries. The deal could help reverse a pause Trump has placed on US military support to Ukraine, which has been fighting an invading Russian army since 2022.
Ukraine has, even under Russian bombardment, sought to ramp up its clean energy infrastructure. But the new deal could “reverse these advances, potentially forcing our nation back into fossil fuel dependency and external energy control – a devastating setback for a country that has sacrificed so much for its independence”, said Svitlana Romanko, a Ukrainian environmental lawyer and executive director of Razom We Stand.
“Trump’s neocolonial mineral grab would make Ukraine a vassal state and accelerate the climate crisis while doing nothing to protect our sovereignty,” Romanko added. “The only people who win from this proposal are the shareholders of American companies and [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.”
Countries and businesses will continue to recognize the threats posed by the climate crisis, but Trump’s slashing of support for renewable energy domestically and immolation of USAid and other internationally focused bodies will hinder efforts to reduce emissions, according to Jonathan Elkind, a global energy expert at Columbia University.
“To a much greater extent than ever before, this Trump team is saying that they have no problems with fossil fuels being a part of the energy mix indefinitely,” Elkind said.
“People around the world need climate solutions, not only people in very poor economies but also in the US. But Donald Trump has made clear he’s not going to address this problem on his watch.”
