Germán Toro Ghio, Karlstad, Sweden, September 2, 2025
The rules of the new global energy order are now being shaped in Eurasia, not Washington. Leaders like Putin, Modi, and Xi are shaping this new energy framework, challenging the illusion of American dominance that Trump once believed in.
I. Trump’s Illusion and Its Collapse
Donald Trump entered his second presidency convinced that he could bend Vladimir Putin into a pragmatic partner. He imagined Russia as a chess piece that could be repositioned, detached from China, and used to America’s advantage. The calculation was simple: flatter Putin, weaken NATO’s pressure, and make business deals that would secure American influence.
But this was a misreading of Putin’s worldview. For the Russian leader, the collapse of the Soviet Union was not just a geopolitical event but a national humiliation. NATO’s eastward expansion, Russia’s dependency on Western finance in the 1990s, and the loss of influence over its near abroad convinced him that the West would always seek to diminish Russia. Concord was never his goal. Reversal was.
Trump’s belief in personal chemistry — the illusion that a handshake could undo decades of geopolitical mistrust — left Washington blind. While Trump posed for cameras, Putin worked to re-engineer the global order, tightening ties with Beijing and New Delhi, redirecting oil and gas eastward, and laying the foundations for a Eurasian bloc that would bypass Western markets altogether.
II. The Moscow–Beijing–New Delhi Triangle
What sanctions intended as punishment have achieved is reorientation. Russia has not been isolated; it has been integrated into a different set of economic circuits.
Russia now sells oil and gas to Asia at discounted rates, sustaining its war economy despite Western embargoes. Its “shadow fleet” of tankers and its deals with Asian refiners have allowed it to outmanoeuvre the G7’s price cap.
China acts as the anchor. By signing multi-decade contracts, often in yuan, it insulates itself from the dollar’s volatility and ensures steady supply. At the same time, it expands nuclear, solar, and wind capacity at home, thereby reducing its long-term dependence.
India emerges as a decisive and opportunistic partner. Imports of Russian crude have multiplied eightfold since 2021, turning India into one of Moscow’s lifelines. New Delhi pays in rupees or through intermediaries, securing energy on favourable terms while signalling strategic autonomy from Washington.
It is not a formal alliance, but a functional coalition: a shared rejection of Western dominance, a willingness to trade outside the dollar, and a commitment to build new routes — from the Arctic sea lanes to Central Asian corridors.
The result is that the world’s centre of energy gravity is shifting east. Where once Europe dictated demand and OPEC managed supply, today Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi redraw the map.
III. Oil Prices: Geopolitics at the Pump
Oil is the most visible indicator of this shift. Brent trades around $68–69 per barrel, WTI near $65. Prices spike when Ukrainian strikes damage Russian infrastructure, then ease under the weight of oversupply. Goldman Sachs forecasts Brent could fall into the low $50s by 2026.
But the real story lies beneath the numbers:
Europe is now structurally disadvantaged, paying higher LNG-linked prices after cutting off Russian pipeline gas.
Asia buys Russian crude at steep discounts, well below the G7’s $60 cap, securing competitive energy for its industries.
Producers find themselves in a volatile landscape, with investment decisions clouded by sanctions, tariffs, and shifting routes.
The oil market is no longer governed by OPEC+ quotas or Wall Street futures alone. It is hostage to missiles, sanctions, and tariffs.
IV. Natural Gas: The Asymmetry of Dependence
Gas tells a more clear-cut story of imbalance.
In Europe, benchmark TTF trades around €26–27/MWh — far below the panic peaks of 2022 but still double pre-crisis averages. Households and industries continue to bear the cost of diversification. In the United States, by contrast, Henry Hub prices hover at $2.5–2.9/MMBtu. This enormous gap translates into a strategic advantage: U.S. LNG exports remain highly profitable, even after liquefaction and shipping costs.
The consequences are political: Europe’s energy independence has been replaced by dependence on America. Sovereignty has been purchased at a premium, and Washington now holds a lever over Europe that Moscow once controlled.
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V. Europe Under Siege
Europe today is squeezed between Moscow’s aggression and Washington’s coercion.
From Russia: hybrid warfare. The jamming of Ursula von der Leyen’s plane GPS over Bulgaria symbolized the vulnerability of European infrastructure. What began as a war in Ukraine is now a campaign that reaches deep into EU territory.
From the U.S.: economic pressure. Trump’s tariffs — 15–30% on EU exports — were packaged as negotiating tactics but are seen in Brussels as coercion.
Meanwhile, ordinary Europeans foot the bill. In the UK, the annual household energy cap has risen to £1,755, nearly 60% higher than in 2021. The promise of energy sovereignty has translated into higher bills and greater dependency.
VI. The Americas Push Back
Trump’s unilateralism has fractured not only the Atlantic but the entire hemisphere.
Canada: hit with tariffs of up to 35%, Ottawa retaliated with duties on $21 billion worth of U.S. goods.
Mexico: faced 25% tariffs outside USMCA exemptions, prompting diversification and quiet hedging against Washington’s dominance.
Brazil: punished with tariffs as high as 40%, retaliated in kind, and reframed itself as a defender of the Global South against U.S. coercion.
Rather than consolidating leadership, Washington finds itself encircled by reluctant neighbors. The Americas, once assumed to be America’s sphere, now look increasingly multipolar.
VII. The Political and Economic Costs
The consequences reverberate beyond energy.
Gold above $3,500 per ounce signals a global flight to safety.
The dollar weakens as energy transactions increasingly bypass it in favor of yuan, rupees, or rubles.
Public anger grows as citizens in Europe and the Americas absorb higher costs while leaders promise sovereignty but deliver dependency.
Trump sought to project strength. Instead, his tariffs and sanctions have accelerated multipolarity, deepened rival cooperation, and destabilized markets.
VIII. Epilogue: A World Without Coordinates
The image of Ursula von der Leyen’s plane suddenly forced to abandon its satellite navigation and rely on analogue maps over Bulgaria is more than a technical footnote. It happened in international skies, far from a declared war zone, where civil aviation should be sacrosanct. Its meaning is stark: the rules of war, the treaties of peace, the notion of neutral space — none of these boundaries are respected anymore.
The precedent was already set when the Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed in the depths of the Baltic. That, too, occurred in international waters, in the liminal space where international law should provide order. Instead, sabotage pierced the seabed, not only destroying infrastructure but also shattering the illusion that global commons — oceans, skies, networks — remain beyond the battlefield.
Both acts, one in the air, the other at sea, reveal the same truth: the frontier of war has dissolved into the arteries of globalization itself. Energy routes, digital infrastructure, trade corridors, even satellites — nothing is safe, nothing is neutral. The “war zone” is now planetary.
For centuries, the West told itself that its compass was universal. The dominance of the dollar, the centrality of NATO, the monopoly of Western finance, and the supposed sanctity of international law appeared eternal. But the compass needle no longer points north. It spins.
The evidence is everywhere:
Energy flows east — Russian gas once destined for Berlin now fuels Beijing and New Delhi.
Currencies diversify — oil and gas trades bypass the dollar, moving in yuan, rupees, and rubles.
Alliances fracture — Washington imposes tariffs on its allies, while Moscow, Beijing, and Delhi sketch new cartographies of power.
Trump misread the map entirely. He thought he could tame Putin and turn Russia into a counterweight against China. Instead, he accelerated the opposite: he cemented the Moscow–Beijing–New Delhi triangle, fractured the Atlantic alliance, and revealed the fragility of the order he claimed he would restore.
The lesson is brutal. The West is no longer the cartographer of the global map. Its charts are outdated, its bearings are unreliable, and its sovereignty is betrayed by dependency. Its sovereignty rests not on independence, but on imported LNG and fragile trade deals, on sanctions that backfire and tariffs that alienate allies.
Meanwhile, new coordinates of power are traced in Eurasia. Pipelines replace borders, trade routes redraw alliances, and currencies rewrite the grammar of geopolitics. In Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi, a new map is being drawn — one in which the West is not the centre but the periphery, no longer the drafter but the reader of rules written elsewhere.
The conclusion is unavoidable: the age of Western command is ending. Von der Leyen’s analogue maps and Nord Stream’s broken pipes are not accidents; they are metaphors. They symbolise a civilisation that believed its coordinates were eternal, only to discover that its compass no longer guides the world.
The rules of the global energy order are no longer drafted in Washington. They are being written in Eurasia — and the ink is indelible.
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