European countries must stop buying Russian oil and gas if they want Washington to impose tougher sanctions on Moscow, according to Donald Trump’s energy chief, who said the trade funds Vladimir Putin‘s “war machine.”

Chris Wright, the US Energy Secretary, told the Financial Times that European countries would have to buy US LNG, gasoline and other fossil fuel products in order to meet the terms of the US-EU trade deal, which calls for EU countries to buy $750 billion worth of US energy by the end of 2028.

“If the Europeans would set a limit and say: “We won’t buy any more Russian gas, we won’t buy Russian oil”. Would that also have a positive effect on the US to adopt a more aggressive stance [on sanctions]? Absolutely,” he said in an interview ahead of talks with his EU counterpart in Brussels this week. “We think it’s good for Europe from an economic point of view. You want to have secure energy suppliers who are your allies, not your enemies. The other reason is that a huge goal of the Trump administration, and I think of the EU, is to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia is funding its war machine from oil and gas exports, and if you stop European markets for these products, it reduces its revenues.”

Brussels is pressing Washington to impose tougher economic sanctions on Russia to increase pressure on Putin as part of an effort to reach a peace deal in Ukraine.