AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
European leaders were reluctant to tap their energy reserves when President Trump demanded they help him lower fuel cost ahead of U.S. midterm elections. Nonetheless, on Friday, they agreed to a decision made in the G7 framework. But was it a good political bargain for them? Teri Schultz has this report.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: President Trump announced the G7 agreement would, in his words, deliver lower prices for every single American.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm pleased to report that we have reached an agreement for Europe to release massive amounts of diesel fuel from their heavily stocked reserves, and that's starting immediately.
SCHULTZ: Not everyone is buying it.
CHARLY SALONIUS-PASTERNAK: It's entirely a psychological hoodwink trick.
SCHULTZ: That's Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Nordic West Office think tank in Helsinki.
SALONIUS-PASTERNAK: It's three days of global diesel fuel usage. That said, the psychology right now is probably what's most important to G7 leaders in terms of being able to tell their voters or their businesses, we're doing something about this.
SCHULTZ: They're doing it, but not by choice or goodwill. Trump threatened to cut off crucial diesel exports to Europe unless they released some of their reserves, and Europe is heavily dependent on U.S. diesel. So while they were uncomfortable reducing their reserves, they were more worried about the security of the supply. But Maximilian Terhalle, of the Cambridge University Center for Geopolitics, thinks by letting themselves be pushed into that corner, European leaders missed a chance to take control of this situation for their own benefit.
MAXIMILIAN TERHALLE: Europeans are basically weakening themselves. If they don't come up with a more coherent strategy, how can we use such American requests? The fear of the gallon has driven all U.S. presidents, right? It's because he is desperate. Yeah. And we need to, in a friendly way, manipulate that desperation framed as, hey, we are in a big alliance. You need something, we need something. Let's make it work for us, together.
SCHULTZ: Robin Haggblom, of the Danish security risk company Risk Intelligence, says there's still a chance European leaders can use this to their advantage.
ROBIN HAGGBLOM: Markets aren't famous for being rational as well, so there is certainly a possibility that if they're able to sell it well to the voters, the market may also react positively despite nothing fundamental on the ground having changed.
SCHULTZ: But the immediate price drop promised by President Trump is not a given as the G7's 100 million barrel release will take place over the next four months. For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.
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