The plan is to lock in US natural gas, and the infrastructure to support it, across this country and the rest of the world, to guarantee a captive, dependent group of consumers, who can be squeezed, abused and blackmailed, for decades to come.
This means jacking up exports, pitting US consumers against those in Europe and Asia, who are willing to pay 2x, 5x, or 10x more for the product.
This winter, America’s natural gas keeps millions of Americans warm in their homes, powering everything from heating systems to holiday decorations. Beyond U.S. borders, the United States serves as a reliable, year-round supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG), strengthening global energy security when demand rises, including during the winter months.
Already the world’s largest exporter of LNG, the United States is on track to double its LNG production capacity by 2029. America exports LNG — used for electricity generation, industrial production and to home heating — to 43 countries.
“We stand ready to provide any country with abundant, affordable energy supplies if you need them,” President Trump said of U.S. energy production at the U.N. General Assembly in September. “We’re proudly exporting energy all over the world.”
For each of the first nine months of 2025, U.S. LNG export volumes outpaced the same month in the prior year. In fact, in September, U.S. LNG exports topped 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), a 25% increase over September 2024.
During the 2024 campaign, President Donald Trump promised voters that his policies would lower their energy prices by 50 percent, repeating this pledge in speeches in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “We will cut energy and electricity prices in half within 12 months—not just for businesses but for all Americans and their families,” he wrote in a Newsweek op-ed.
That hasn’t happened. Nationwide, electricity bills are up 13 percentcompared to last year, with some states facing steeper jumps than others. One of the reasons for those increases is the growing export of liquefied natural gas and a corresponding spike in gas prices, argues a new report from Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.
The analysis, based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, found that Americans paid $12 billion more for natural gas between January and September 2025 than they did over the same period last year. Because natural gas is used to heat homes directly and to power the electric grid, its price has an outsized impact on Americans’ utility bills. Higher exports leave Americans more exposed to swings in the global market.
LNG exports were up 22 percent this year, according to the report. While the U.S. is already the world’s largest exporter of the fuel, the second Trump administration has made increasing LNG exports a priority.
“Trump’s prioritization of LNG exports is directly in the way of efforts to address energy affordability,” said Tyson Slocum, author of the report and the director of Public Citizen’s energy program. “Twenty-five percent of all of America’s natural gas production is being dedicated to natural gas exports.”
Millions of Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills, Slocum said. The latest Census Bureau data on the subject, from September 2024, showed that 23 percent of Americans reported not being able to pay at least one energy bill in full in the prior year.
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“European benchmark natural gas prices have been declining at the same exact time and rate that U.S. prices are increasing. What this means is American families are subsidizing cheaper gas for Europeans,” Slocum said. In 2024, Europe was the leading destination for U.S. LNG exports, accounting for 53 percent.
Elizabeth Marx, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, testified at a public hearing about LNG exports and a proposed LNG terminal held last month by the Pennsylvania House Environmental & Natural Resource Protection Committee. Her legal aid organization helps Pennsylvanians struggling to pay their utility bills.
“We are deeply concerned about the impact of the rapidly expanding LNG export markets on the affordability of gas and electric service for Pennsylvania families—and the corresponding impact on the ability of economically vulnerable households to maintain energy service to their home,” she said there.
As of September, terminations for electricity service were up 27 percent year over year in Pennsylvania, and increasing LNG exports are one of the causes, she said. In addition to the electricity price increases triggered by the push to rapidly build and power more data centers, the shutdown and massive cuts within the federal government this year led to disruptions to benefits that typically help residents pay their utility bills and afford groceries, worsening the situation for people barely getting by, Marx said.