News of the day. We just heard that we have an emergency electricity issue in the United States. President Trump is now declaring 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada. Your reaction to a trade war?
I think this war should, I hope it will end quickly. I think it's better not to have wars to be honest. Maybe it's a tactic to negotiate. And I think honestly, there are all these economies interconnected in fact in North America. You know, in many ways the cars, parts, etc., including by the way electricity. You know, of course the northeast of the US is receiving electricity from the hydro of Canada for the benefit of the citizens. So there are a lot of issues. I understand also about drugs, migrations, it's not only about trade. So my view is that as a global company, it's better to hope this will be solved quickly. That's all what I can hope, in the benefit of all the parties. And like it was for Trump, one I remember was a debate, maybe the shortest would be the better for everybody, including by the way for the US economy.
Does it make you think two or three times about investing in the United States?
No, why not? No, because I'm an energy company. Energy, you have a nice country for energy. You have the cheapest gas, you have oil, we can explore, we can develop. In electricity, a booming market of electricity. You need more electricity, it's going to cost more now. No, yeah, but it's good. We can build gas plants, cheap gas, gas-fired plants. We are building also in Texas. In Texas today I have 5 gigawatts of solar plants. It was easy to build here because you have a lot of space. Combining plants with gas, renewables with gas plants, is a nice way to produce more electricity. So for me, the US is a large market and we are ready to invest in the US. I understand that the only point is that if we need to restore, for example, all the solar panels that we use on our solar fields, why not? It's just a little more expensive, so the customers will have to pay somewhere. So not you, but the end market.
Yeah, okay. But then let's just tackle say offshore wind for a second. In the offshore wind, I put it in a pause. Yeah, a pause or like the garbage pile.
No, not garbage. Because we got a concession for 50 years. Okay, so I understand. During these next four years, no way to obtain any federal license. So I don't want to spend my time, lose my time, my teams. I don't need to spend money to spend money for that. So we say no, we put a pause. We have reduced our teams to minimum. And then four years, we'll see if federal policies are changed.
Are you worried about any existing leases that you currently have and operating for wind and solar?
I was talking to the Secretary of the Interior who didn't, who didn't rule that out yesterday. No, to do what? To take away those leases? To take away the leases? But the leases, you can manage that on federal land. So I check, I have no leases on federal lands, so and by the way in Texas there is no federal land almost, so no. We make our due diligence, so we are fine. Okay. And I think honestly, when I discuss, by the way Elon Musk is a big fan of solar and batteries for good reasons. So I think and we will see the debate. I'm sure the debate at the Congress and the Senate will be interesting with the reconciliation bill. So that's clear that for the time being we'll wait to see what are the new fiscal conditions to develop solar in the US. But you know there are a lot of red states where we develop, we know. And again, what priority for the Trump administration is? We want more electricity for AI, for data centers. It's all of the above. More electricity, it's gas, it could be nuclear, but it could also be renewables with batteries. So I'm optimistic. I think at the end, common sense in the US, what they observed at the end, business interests are always respected. And you have a fundamentally the Trump administration is very business friendly, so why not for energy, which is at the core of all their program for growth? Okay, so I'm optimistic globally though.
I mean, we're looking at stocks taking a hit. The sentiment is not great. There are worries about recession either in the US or elsewhere because of tariffs. Are you seeing any indication of that?
Yeah, but what? Because you know what, people hate uncertainty. What has been created is uncertainty with all these tariff wars. So suddenly we don't like the markets, the stock markets do not like we don't know what we go. So putting the C is a nice way to negotiate? I can use it myself from time to time. I'm not a big... I'm not sure obtaining good results, but short cease? Please, that's all. But the markets are saying to the administration, 'We don't like uncertainty. We are changing the world, where do we go?' So I think the shortest will be the better for all the interests, including fundamentally for the US economy. And I'm sure that President Trump and his administration are very led by the healthy US economy, which was not too bad in fact. So stop this uncertainty. That's, I think, the best thing to do in order to avoid recession, which honestly the US economy should not get again.
No, globally for China, for example, if China puts a tariff on US LNG, that does directly impact your business. You're a huge gas and LNG trader. So how does it?
Not impact? I tell you, I tell you why. Because the Chinese are smart. If they choose that product, it's because it has little impact. Because in fact a company like Total, we produce LNG, 40 million tons in 12 countries. So yes, my energy from the US will not go to China because there is a tariff, but I will use the energy from Qatar or from Australia to go to China. So in fact we made the analysis, the impact on China is very minimum, almost nothing. And for you honestly today, for us we are the largest exporter of US energy, more than 10 million tons. Our primary market is more Europe today. So we bring energy to Europe, which is fitting exactly with the Trump administration policy to expand the business, the trade with Europe through energy, and in particular energy.
What happens though if there's peace in Ukraine and Europe starts buying Russian gas more? I see, first we need to have peace, second we need to see if Europeans will buy more Russian gas. Any indication that they might from where you sit?
