President Trump’s new tariffs are shaking global energy markets, driving down oil and gas prices, slowing clean energy projects, and raising questions about global economic stability.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping new tariffs last week sent shockwaves through global markets, igniting fears of economic slowdown and triggering retaliatory measures from major U.S. trading partners like China. With geopolitical tensions simmering and economic uncertainty rising, Trump’s tariff gamble could reshape the global energy landscape for years to come—and impact American national interests.

For example, how low could oil prices go? How long could low prices last? How might the tariffs affect global markets for clean energy systems? And finally, how vulnerable is Russia’s oil-dependent economy in this new low-price era? Didn’t low oil prices contribute to the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse? These are only a few of the critical questions for global energy markets—and geopolitics—in the wake of the U.S. tariff announcements. The answers hold profound importance for energy importing and exporting countries around the world, including the United States, China, the European Union, India, the Middle East, Brazil, and Russia, among others. 

Early reporting suggest that the U.S. tariffs’ consequences are already reverberating through the global energy system: oil and natural gas prices are sliding, producers are facing potentially significant economic pressure, and the clean energy transition is encountering fresh headwinds as tariffs hit solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and batteries, as well as the key materials and components that comprise them. Falling prices could also encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials to turn at least one eye toward Russia’s federal budget revenue and especially to taxes collected on energy exports; before the tariffs, year-on-year tax collections from Russia’s oil and gas exports had already fallen by one-sixth from March 2024 to March 2025. 

In this episode, The National Interest’s publisher, Paul Saunders, starts a new podcast series: Three Questions. During this and subsequent episodes in the series, he will pose three questions to top experts, policymakers, and business leaders. In this week’s conversation, Saunders speaks with Tatiana Mitrova, a Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and Director of the New Energy Advancement Hub. 

Mitrova has twenty-five years of experience studying global energy markets, including production, transportation, demand, energy policy, pricing, and market restructuring. Earlier in her career, she was Head of Research at the Oil and Gas Department in the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; she later became executive director of the Energy Center at Skolkovo School of Management, outside Moscow. From 2018 to 2025, she was a member of the board of directors of Schlumberger, a global oilfield services company.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping new tariffs last week sent shockwaves through global markets, igniting fears of economic slowdown and triggering retaliatory measures from major trading partners like China. The consequences are already reverberating through the global energy system: oil and gas prices are sliding, producers are under pressure, and the clean energy transition faces fresh headwinds as tariffs hit solar panels, EVs, and battery components. With geopolitical tensions simmering and economic uncertainty rising, could Trump’s tariff gamble reshape the global energy landscape for years to come? And how vulnerable is Russia’s oil-dependent economy in this new low-price era?

Image: Shutterstock/Daniele Mezzadri

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