They can and they already do, LNG from the US is flowing in. But swapping dependence on Russia for dependence on the US isn’t the clearcut win people imagine. Washington is in the middle of its own trade war, and Europe is one of the targets. Pax Americana is over, and Europe is treated less as an ally than as a vassal. The US openly exploits Europe’s fear of Russia, turning a legitimate threat into a lever for domination. What Europe gets is dependency and vulnerability, while the US extracts obedience and profit.
The irony is that the US slaps higher tariffs on most European countries than it does on Russia itself. As the old saying goes, "it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal".
Are you sure that is accurate? My research found that since the invasion, Russia’s MFN was revoked and Column 2 rates + import bans make US barriers on Russian goods much higher overall than on EU goods.
I'd be curious to hear what Europeans actually think of it on the ground. Is it not a major domestic issue that your governments are funding a genocidal regime? Do people just kinda pretend it's not happening b/c it's inconvenient to talk about? Just kinda blush, say sorry, and carry on?
I don't really understand the psychology of it. Are people for instance actively trying to use less gas in their personal lives?
In Czech Republic upgraded our infra and stopped using Russian gas and oil.
Might have something to do with Russia orchestrated terrorist attack agains Czech munition warehouses that killed two people in 2014[0].
Or the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968[1] - just because the local communist leaders happened to be a bit too much enlightened for their tastes.
Just a few days ago I went past memorial plague for the girl killed in protests against the Soviet invasion in 1969[2][3] - forever 18 years old...
There were lots of flowers, people still remember.
I don’t speak for others, probably a minority opinion. I vividly remember the protests against the switch to Russian oil and against the pipeline. There’s a saying here: if you burn your ass you sit on the blisters.