Trump was right: Nobody's ever seen the Alaska LNG pipeline cash
Seven months ago President Donald Trump praised himself for starting the giant Alaska LNG pipeline project.
“Launched a massive Alaska pipeline project to export natural gas to Asia. We made a deal with South Korea and Japan that gives us money, the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before,” he said during his one-year victory lap as a two-time president.
Nobody has ever seen any of that money.
There was no deal with South Korea and Japan. The winner of the FIFA peace prize had launched nothing.
But Gov. Mike Dunleavy highlighted Trump’s lie in his last State of the State speech: “Just two days ago, on the one-year anniversary of his second term, President Trump again singled out the Alaska LNG Project as a national priority. President Trump said, and I quote, that he has secured ‘unprecedented funding’ from South Korea and Japan through his trade deals to develop the Alaska LNG Project.”
The claims during the first year of the second Trump administration that Alaska LNG pipeline would succeed because it was Donald Trump’s favorite project depended on his efforts to force Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and other nations to pay for it.
This mob-boss mentality did not work, though Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich the Third had total faith in the master deal maker.
Dunleavy, Sullivan and Begich took to claiming that Trump had created the Golden Age of Alaska.
On March 21, 2025, Dunleavy told CNBC International that “We’re actually looking at potentially having gas flow through that pipe in two years. And then the liquefaction plant, the export plant, about a year, year-and-a-half after that, and the conditioning plant around the same time. So you will probably see gas flowing to Asia in 2030-31.”
“And again, a lot of people are interested in this now for a whole host of reasons. You know one of the main reasons of course is that President Trump supports this pipeline for national security reasons, but also helping out our Asian allies and having discussions with trade and tariffs.”
Trump’s billionaire cabinet members boasted about Trump’s brilliant shakedown plan on many occasions.
The most memorable claims were from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the guy who said that Trump’s trade deals would bring back great jobs to the United States, including "the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones. That kind of thing is going to come to America.”
On September 11, 2025, Lutnick went on CNBC to say the Japanese had given Trump $550 billion to spend in any way that Trump wanted, to get a 15 percent tariff instead of 25 percent.
“It is just the most fun working for Donald Trump, I mean this deal is off the rails!” said Lutnick, a former visitor to Epstein’s island.
“So the president has complete discretion on where these investments go. The Japanese, it’s classic, they are going to meet capital calls in America. They are going to give America money when we ask for it to build the projects. How do they plan to fund it? You know that’s their business of course,” he said.
The $550 billion would pay for lots of projects, including the Alaska pipeline, Lutnick claimed.
“But what we will see is just, the president says look, I want to build, as an example, the Alaska pipeline. I am going to finally utilize all those assets that we have in Alaska. We’re gonna build the giant Alaska pipeline, make capital calls to the Japanese. We build that. I mean think of the employment!”
“You look at next year’s employment! It is going to explode! All these factories we’re building! All the plants that are coming into America! You look at the unemployment rate numbers today! Wait till a year from today. Wow! It will be amazing numbers!”
“There’s just no way they’re going to not fund these projects. And Donald Trump is going to deliver to the American people,” he said.
“Alaska pipeline, scale, $50 billion, $100 billion, Donald Trump wants to unleash the Alaska pipelines. The Japanese will finance it. And it’s great for America. It’s fantastic,” Lutnick said on September 5, 2025.
Lutnick claimed that no one was retaliating against Trump, including the “ridiculous Canadians.” And that this was the smartest deal in history.
Lutnick has been wrong about lots of things, starting with his claim that Trump had signed the smartest deal in history with Japan.
“After the Supreme Court threw out Mr. Trump’s original tariff policy, the average effective tariff rate on U.S. imports fell to 7 percent, from 14 percent, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The rate has since risen to 11 percent,” the New York Times said.
The “Build the Line!” propaganda campaign is all about erasing recent history.
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.