What Glenfarne and the “Build the Line!” propaganda campaign want Alaskans to forget about are the extravagant promises of 2025 that Donald Trump would make the Alaska LNG pipeline a reality.

Alaska’s Republican governor and Republican Congressional delegation claimed for months that Trump would get Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and other nations to pay for Alaska’s largest construction project and get it built in record time.

They believed Trump. They claimed it was a Golden Age. They said that to get a tariff deal with Trump, the Asian nations would have to agree to buy Alaska LNG.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich the Third claimed at the start of the second Trump administration that the Alaska LNG project was Trump’s top priority and that he had the focus, the discipline and the “dream team” cabinet members to see it through.

They have refused to admit that almost everything they said about the pipeline in 2025 was wrong. Now they and Glenfarne have invented the story that the Legislature is to blame.

The focus, discipline and the capabilities of the dream team were as fleeting as Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump’s casinos and Trump phones.

The misguided belief in Trump’s powers and the political gullibility that went with it has to be understood by Alaskans.

What is clear in hindsight is that even before Trump’s executive order—UNLEASHING ALASKA’S EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCE POTENTIAL—he wanted to boast that he could accomplish what no one else had done—build the gas pipeline. And he wanted to claim victory before anything was built.

The Golden Age of Alaska

On February 7, 2025 Trump began claiming he had accomplished something big—that Japan was talking about a joint venture to build the pipeline. Alaska news organizations reported the claim without mentioning that there was no joint venture.

Sullivan’s office said “PRESIDENT TRUMP ANNOUNCES ‘JOINT VENTURE’ ON ALASKA LNG PROJECT WITH JAPAN.”

“We look forward to working with President Trump, Japanese officials, and others to put project agreements in place ASAP,” said Dunleavy.

Begich referred to a “potential joint venture” and a partnership with Japan. There was no potential joint venture or partnership.

This happened on the day that Trump announced an executive order to support plastic straws and oppose paper straws.

In April and again in July, Trump repeated the false claims about a joint venture.

On February 21, 2025 Dunleavy told the right wingers at CPAC that everything had changed in Alaska the moment Trump was elected again.

“It’s Christmas every day now,” Dunleavy said.

On March 4, 2025, Trump addressed the nation from the Capitol and claimed that his administration was “working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, one of the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each. It has never been anything like that one. It will be truly spectacular. It’s all set to go. The permitting has gotten.”

Dunleavy and Sullivan and Begich said the gas pipeline was in Trump’s hands and all was good. The stars were aligned like never before, said Sullivan.

But the stars were not aligned and there were no trillions to be had.

On April 10, 2025, Sen. Dan Sullivan claimed to Fox News that “We’re talking about laying pipe as early as the end of this year, the beginning of next year. You know, think about the jobs that would come with that. The estimates are 15 to 20,000 jobs.”

“This would be one of the biggest construction projects in American history. And it’s got President Trump’s name all over it, cause if it happens, it will be largely due to him,” Sullivan said.

“The president has made this a top priority of his,” said Sullivan.

“When you get long-term secure off-take agreements from buyers, that’s a really key component to being able to finance a project. So if we get those agreements, particularly with the president and his team making them part of these reciprocal trade agreements, then you can finance these projects and start to build them,” said Sullivan.

Getting Japan and Korea to agree to buy Alaska LNG for 20 years would be a key part of any Trump tariff deal, said Sullivan.

Those deals never happened.

On April 24, 2025, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration ordered Japan and South Korea to send officials to Alaska June 2 to continue the pressure campaign to get those nations to pledge tens of billions for the gas pipeline.

The New York Times said the Trump administration wanted a “formal commitment within the next few weeks to a $44 billion natural gas project in Alaska.” The commitments did not happen.

On May 12, 2025, Dunleavy appeared with Ken Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank. Weinstein asked why Trump was so enamored of the Alaska LNG pipeline.

“When I meet with officials from overseas I say this is his top construction priority in the United States. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But my sense is that this is something that really means something to him,” Weinstein said.

“We believe it’s his top,” Dunleavy said. “And we’re promoting it that way. We believe it’s his top.”

“But he does, he does, he’s very excited about the concept. And I think part of it is, you know in the political world you could put a lot of time and effort into doing things. And sometimes even the small things take a lot of time and effort. And sometimes your efforts are better spent on massive large sums projects.”

“Larger projects that are game changers that will leave an impact on the world for the next 50 years is what I think the president is trying to do. And I think you’re gonna see a number of things. I don’t have inside information on this, but I figure you’ll see things on the foreign front in terms of ending wars and potential peace deals, I think trade deals are gonna be significant. I think the president is working with leaders throughout the world to realign the world, but using massive projects, massive deals, massive agreements to do that.”

“With the president now, things are moving very quickly, very fast. We couldn’t be happier.,” he said.

Dunleavy said construction would start by the middle of 2026. Gas would be flowing to Southcentral Alaska by 2028-2029.

The delusion that Trump and the pressure of tariff negotiations would force Asian nations to sign long-term contracts continued.

This may all be recent history, but it is in danger of being forgotten amid the “Build the Line!” political hysteria that is all about changing the subject.

Alaska LNG promoters counted on Trump, who didn't deliver

The Golden Age of Alaska