Secretary Wright Delivers Remarks at Atlantic Council in Croatia - April 27, 2026

Is Croatia spectacular or what? Look at this. Look at the gathering of people that came here for this event from so many nations. We come together in this beautiful place, in this beautiful setting. The Republic of Ragusa, otherwise known as Dubrovnik, was one of the first nations in Europe to recognize the United States of America right at the end of a revolutionary war. So the partnership is deep and long. I'm here in Dubrovnik today as a representative of President Trump. He got elected and he ran and believes passionately in an agenda for energy addition. What the world needs is more energy, not less energy. That's how we make our country, the United States, more prosperous and more secure. And equally, that's how we make our friends and allies more prosperous and more secure. We are all in, all in on energy, energy addition. In the United States this year, we will grow, just in these 12 months, we will grow our export capacity of natural gas by somewhere between 15 and 20 million tons of additional capacity at the end of this year than the start of this year. We are today and will continue to be by far the world's largest exporter of natural gas. This is very expensive infrastructure, but we build it because natural gas is the fastest growing energy source on the planet and it's in demand around the world. It's in demand because it's cheap, it's clean, it's flexible, it can do all the things that you need for a better life. Whether it's a data center, a new manufacturing plant, electricity, home heating, a petrochemical industry. But to get the benefits of natural gas, you have to build infrastructure on both ends. We have to build it in the United States, you have to build it here in Europe and here in Croatia. The Kirk Terminal up north of here on the coast is another Croatian-American partnership where Croatia leaned in, built a sizable and still expanding LNG import terminal, also an oil import terminal, not just to satisfy the needs of Croatia but their neighbors and they're working from Bosnia-Herzegovina towards the south and all of central and eastern Europe to the north to bring energy together to these nations. Because when you bring nations together and you bring energy together, you build long-term partnerships and long-term relationships. When President Trump was elected, crazy enough, this may sound crazy to say this here, we had decided to pause the building of any more natural gas export terminals in the United States. I can't get my head around that. The fastest growing energy source since the financial crisis, likely for the next few decades, and we had pulled back on that. There is too much energy subtraction, climate alarmism politics in the United States and in Europe and elsewhere, and one of our goals in the United States is just to bring realism about. Energy is about two things. It's about humans. We produce energy to make people's lives better, more prosperous, more opportunity-rich, more secure. And it's about math. What's the best way to do that? And success in energy is a broad diversity of both geographically and in energy types. Build a broad portfolio of effective, reliable, secure energy, and you can build a prosperous society. But that takes multiple nations, that takes trade and interaction, and we are thrilled to be here in Croatia and with the 12 other nations of the Three Seas Initiative, which I'm a huge fan of, and 10 other partner nations like the United States of the Three Seas Initiative. So I look forward to the next two and a half days together. I look forward to a spectacular dinner here tonight. God bless you all. God bless the partnership between all our nations and the United States of America. Cheers.