Allison W. Good
The transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration is bound to usher in a host of policy changes for Israel, but perhaps nowhere will this be felt more acutely than in energy policy. Despite the plethora of implications that eastern Mediterranean natural gas reserves have for international energy security and geopolitics, the region – and Israel more specifically – must prepare for a more hands-off U.S. approach. Since gas was first discovered in the Levant Basin in 2009, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, and Turkey benefited from an administration willing to spend political capital on clearing obstacles to development. President Trump’s isolationist energy platform and pro-Russian bent may not intentionally hinder the exploration, development, and distribution of eastern Mediterranean gas, but it does remove the active U.S. foreign policy factor that has helped speed up the exploitation of this resource.
