US LNG agenda could pressure Sandu and Tofan, Hartmann says
Political analyst H.D. Hartmann, speaking on Natalia Morari’s programme, said the main mission of the new US ambassador to Chișinău, Joseph Mark Burkhalter, is to secure sales of American liquefied natural gas.
“He came with one single message. Read his messages, they are public. The vertical corridor and Moldova must buy LNG through Greece, American liquefied gas,” Hartmann said.
According to Hartmann, the appointment should be read less as a diplomatic gesture than as part of an energy sales strategy. He said Burkhalter is not a career diplomat, but a businessman previously linked to real estate.
“This ambassador is not a career diplomat. He came with an order to sell gas. And if he does not fulfil his sales plan, he will hit Maia Sandu and Tofan so hard they will not be seen,” Hartmann claimed.
Hartmann alleges LNG pressure and interests around intermediaries
Hartmann claimed that Moldova is caught between competing external interests. In his view, Germany and Paris are not interested in American gas entering the Moldovan market, while Washington is approaching the issue seriously.
“Maia Sandu will not have the money to buy. The Americans are not a charity. They want a 20-year contract. This is the gas market,” he said.
At the same time, Hartmann alleged that Prime Minister Vasile Tofan has a personal interest in preserving the current supply model through intermediaries. He did not provide documentary evidence for the claim in the quoted remarks.
“Or did you not know that Tofan is involved in gas trading through a member of his family? Yes, from Germany. His cousin is involved in this,” the analyst alleged on air.
The allegation, if substantiated, would add another layer to earlier questions over Energocom’s gas purchase costs, after the company’s management refused to disclose how much public money had been paid to gas brokers.
For critics of the current energy policy, the issue is not only whether Moldova buys gas from the United States, Europeor through intermediaries. It is also who benefits from the route, the contracts and the lack of transparency around the final price paid by consumers.
Hartmann describes alleged “American ultimatum”
According to Hartmann, Washington has already prepared a “file” on Moldova’s leadership. He suggested that if Maia Sandu fails to secure purchases of American gas through a Greek port allegedly controlled by Israel, pressure may follow.
“If Maia Sandu does not pull from the national budget as much money as the Trump administration wants, the file on the so-called ‘options’ that the United States has prepared regarding her administration, it will be a show of music and light,” Hartmann warned.
These are Hartmann’s claims, and the source material provided does not include independent confirmation of them. His remarks nevertheless frame Moldova’s gas policy as a field of geopolitical pressure rather than a purely commercial matter.
The country is being told to diversify supplies, align with Western energy routes and move away from dependence on Russian gas. Yet the alternative described by Hartmann would, in his view, replace one dependency with another this time tied to long-term US LNG contracts and political pressure from Washington.
For Sandu and Tofan, the political problem, as Hartmann presents it, is double. If they resist American gas, they risk conflict with the United States. If they accept it on unfavourable terms, they risk forcing Moldovan consumers to pay still more for an energy policy presented as independence.
The central question raised by the allegations is whether Moldova’s gas market is being organised for the benefit of citizens, or for the benefit of foreign suppliers, political patrons and domestic intermediaries.
