Op-Ed: Josh Teigen and Bonnie Glick: We must unleash American energy to secure our alliances

Climate activists of the world should be picketing for more energy production in America.

There’s an old expression: Where you stand depends on where you sit. This plays out in international affairs quite explicitly in the area of natural resources, especially with oil and gas as countries seek to power the future while ensuring reliable supplies and suppliers.

Case and point, America. We are blessed geographically to be both abundant in natural resources and doubly blessed to be far from global military conflicts. This is not the case for many of our allies in Europe, in the Pacific, and in the Middle East.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, America’s natural gas exports to Europe have skyrocketed. The following year, in 2023, the U.S. was the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in the world, with Russian exports at roughly one-third the American level. The more gas the U.S. exports to compete with our adversaries, the lower the global prices for allies’s imports will be.

This will cause an economic impact not just in Russia, but also in Iran. Iran was previously on its knees economically, but failed U.S. energy policies in the last four years have opened the door for Iran to rebuild its economy and continue to finance terror against our allies. It is time for the U.S. to take a stance that we will re-exert our national defense empire via the expansion of our energy resources.

Europe remains America’s largest customer for gas with the Netherlands, the UK, and France comprising approximately 35 percent of American exports and with Germany increasing its consumption each year while cutting back on Russian imports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called President-elect Donald Trump to relay to him Europe’s growing desire to see American natural gas replace Russian gas entirely. It is cleaner burning and from an ally.

One of the greatest limiting factors to the U.S. being able to offer both energy and food security to our allies is the ability to move these critical commodities from the states in the geographic center of our nation to the coasts. Coastal states such as Oregon, Washington, and California have made it nearly impossible to construct pipelines or other critical infrastructure necessary to get these products to our allies on other continents via maritime shipping routes.

President Trump’s second term will encourage expanded production of natural gas and, we expect, it will also allow for faster permitting for pipelines and LNG terminals to move abundant natural gas resources from the interior of the country to ports and into export terminals to ship to Europe and Asia.

The reinvigoration of the gas industry under President Trump and with the globally savvy team he is building at the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy, led by Doug Burgum and Chris Wright, will not only speed up these processes, but it will eliminate barriers that have prevented us as a nation from fully supporting our allies. The concept of selling energy to our friends and allies rather than having them buy it from our enemies seems to be common sense, but political rhetoric has prevented this common sense from prevailing.

An easing of supply into Europe, as Russia’s brutal campaign against Ukraine is well into its third year, will provide Europeans with peace of mind as they explore their energy future. Gone are the days of dependence on authoritarian regimes for the delivery of fuel. A resurgent American energy economy with oil and gas from the interior of the United States — places like North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Texas — will give Europe time to discover other energy sources, including nuclear energy.

We, too, in America will be looking at new innovations in energy to advance reuse of nuclear waste for fuel for a sustainable nuclear future while also exploring the possibilities associated with fusion energy. But we are not giving up on coal, oil, and gas as vital sources of fuel as well as important exports.

Climate activists of the world should be picketing for more energy production in America. Supply and demand are the order of the day and the demand for energy and its subsequent products is at an all time high. Meanwhile, the cleanest barrel of oil and the cleanest dekatherm of natural gas in the world is produced on American soil. No one cares more about the land, water, and soil than we do.

The opportunity to provide our allies with clean and reliable energy supports not only our economy, but our national defense interests as well. If we fail to fulfill the demand for these energy products, someone else will, and that is likely to be an adversary. The opportunity in front of us today is not a tradeoff between economic prosperity and the environment. Unleashing American energy is a double win for our country.

It is time for the U.S. to set aside political rhetoric and firmly plant the flag to demonstrate that we stand with our allies in Europe, the Pacific, and across the globe. As we sit on the most plentiful resources in the world with a new willingness to unleash our energy capabilities and innovations to secure peace abroad and prosperity at home, we know that our best days are ahead of us.

We owe an unleashing of U.S. energy to the world. We certainly owe it to our allies, and by producing more American energy, we do more for the environment than we would if we shut down our nation’s energy industry in whole or in part. Yes, where you stand depends on where you sit, and as we think of reasons for gratitude, we know that we are blessed to sit in the United States of America.

Josh Teigen is the Commissioner of Commerce for the State of North Dakota. Bonnie Glick is the former Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Agency for International Development.