Habeck says everything has become a political weapon since Trump’s re-election

Robert Habeck warned that the weaponisation of energy that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given way to “weaponising everything” since Donald Trump returned to the White House. He said the belief that gas “would never be a political weapon” led successive German governments into Putin’s trap when they built the Nord Stream pipelines and sold strategic reserves to Gazprom, which Russia emptied before the invasion.

Habeck described Trump’s re-election as a second security shock with “dramatic, drastic … and far-reaching” consequences, including the use of tariffs and technology as tools of statecraft. He says Europe now faces a looming energy crisis after the US and Israel attacked Iran in February, prompting retaliatory strikes that shut the strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and LNG flows, and triggered price spikes that renewed calls for clean local energy.

Germany, Europe

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