It may sound bold for the world’s largest natural gas producer to tell its biggest customer to stop buying from a rival, yet that was precisely the message the United States delivered this week in Milan. At the Gastech conference, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum made it clear to European officials and energy executives that Washington expects Europe to sever its remaining ties to Russian gas, and that America stands ready to fill the gap.

Burgum, who governs U.S. energy policy as part of President Donald Trump’s second-term drive for “energy dominance,” framed the push as a path to both peace and prosperity. In his telling, abundant U.S. energy exports could simultaneously enrich allies and undercut adversaries. “We achieve prosperity at home and with our allies through energy abundance,” he said. “Peace is achieved around the world by selling our energy to our friends and allies who don’t have to buy from our adversaries.”

Indonesia is now treating nickel the way classic commodity powers treat oil: as a market to be managed, not merely a resource to be maximized. The latest signal is unusually aggressive. PT Weda Bay Nickel, the giant Halmahera mining complex widely described as the world’s largest, has been told its 2026 ore quota will be just 12 million wet tonnes, down from the 42 million wet tonnes it was ultimately allowed to mine in 2025.

The immediate market reaction was predictable: nickel futures in London jumped, because the marginal supplier is openly throttling production in a market that had been drowning in Indonesian material.

A G7 statement is expected to announce a ban on imports of Russian diamonds, and this development is slated to occur by the end of the current month. Additionally, the European Union is planning to introduce its 12th package of sanctions against Russia, closely following…