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US president-elect Donald Trump has warned the EU that it must commit to buying “large scale” amounts of US oil and gas or face tariffs.

“I told the European Union that they must make up for their huge deficit with the United States by massively buying our oil and gas. Otherwise, it will be TARIFFS all the way!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.

Trump’s threat follows overtures already made by Brussels offering to buy more US liquefied natural gas, which has become the bloc’s lifeline after Russia squeezed fossil fuel supplies following its all-out invasion of Ukraine.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in November that the EU consider buying more gas from the US.

“We still get a lot of LNG from Russia and why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper for us and lowers our energy prices,” he told reporters.

“This seems strange as a ‘threat’ given that von der Leyen refers to the possibility of doing so precisely,” an EU official observed.

Trump has threatened a blanket tariff of up to 20 percent on all non-Chinese imports into the US. Last month, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde urged European political leaders to work with her on tariffs and buy more US-made goods.

During Trump’s first presidency, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, offered to buy more gas from the US to prevent threats of a trade war.

Analysts at the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel said the EU should back up any offers to buy more American “with a credible threat of retaliation that could be implemented if the US decide to impose tariffs on EU exports”.

Prices of the international benchmark Brent crude fell 0.4 percent to $72.61 per barrel on Friday. West Texas Intermediate futures fell 0.4 percent to $69.14 a barrel.