Germany, EU decry US Nord Stream sanctions

Deutsche Welle ^ | 12.21.2019 | rs,es/ng (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

[Olog-hai]

US sanctions targeting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany were signed into law on Friday evening after President Donald Trump signed off on a massive defense bill.

The sanctions target companies that are involved in constructing the $11 billion (€9.93 billion) energy project that will transport Russian gas supplies under the Baltic Sea and deliver them directly to Germany. […]

On Saturday, the group behind the project said it would aim to complete the project quickly in an effort to minimize the damage of US sanctions. “Completing the project is essential for European supply security. We, together with the companies supporting the project, will work on finishing the pipeline as soon as possible,” Nord Stream 2 said in a statement. […]

The sanctions are also opposed by the European Union. A spokesman slammed “the imposition of sanctions against EU companies conducting legitimate business.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also already vowed to continue with the project and has threatened “reciprocal” measures. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the United States of pushing an ideology that hindered global trade, adding on her Facebook page: “Soon they will demand that we stop breathing.” …

[goldstategop]

The sanctions are DOA. We’re going to force the Germans not to buy Russian gas? Good luck with it.

That will happen when pigs can fly.

[Wuli]

NATO is pfft.

[FLT-bird]

The German are worthless. We should not be subsidizing their defense. Let them pay for it themselves - or suffer the consequences.

[silverleaf]

Let them buy Russian gas.
Let them come up with plans to defend their energy supply in the event of hostilities, i read the Germans have a one-day supply of ammo.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Why should the US give a fig over what Berlin wants to do ?

[House Atreides]

On Saturday, the group behind the project said it would aim to complete the project quickly in an effort to minimize the damage of US sanctions. “Completing the project is essential for European supply security. We, together with the companies supporting the project, will work on finishing the pipeline as soon as possible,” Nord Stream 2 said in a statement. […]
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And THAT is the best thing to do. It’s really not any of our business to interfere in that pipeline between two sovereign nations anymore than it would be the business of countries other than the US and Canada as pipelines between Canada and the US are planned and built.

[Olog-hai]

The “sovereign nations” argument does not work with expansionist powers. Particularly with historical enemies of the USA.

[bert]

You are correct.

Merkel in getting the pipeline has achieved that which Hitler failed to do.

However, her problem is that for reasons not associated with the pipeline, Russia has been sanctioned and the sanctions apply to matters associated with the downstream pipeline.

Like Hitler, Merkel holds Ukraine in low regard.

[nathanbedford]

Why should the US give a fig over what Berlin wants to do ?

Because Germany has the third or fourth largest economy in the world. Germany exports between 40 and 50% of its GNP. Without Germany, NATO is ultimately useless and, because we Americans have now moved east to protect Poland, Germany needs to care even less about the viability of NATO. The weakness of Germany in NATO has long been obvious but the new pipeline deal threatens to render Germany into an energy vassal state of Russia. There is no reasoning with Germans on matters of the environment.

As one who lives in Germany, I can tell you that this is a cultish, impenetrable mentality. In the name of global warming they shut down their nuclear plants so I doubt if it even registers with many Germans that they have made themselves only more vulnerable to energy supplies from Russia. The campaign to convert to Sun and wind has become a very painful joke. Nevertheless, there is no reasoning with Germans on this issue.

So we have the most important economic power in Europe believing that climate change is the greatest threat to humanity and willing to sacrifice virtually every other consideration to that challenge. As Germany goes, so goes Europe. I have been warning for some years here about the ultimate danger of a renewed Ribbentrop/Molotov pact. Combine that with an axis including China and we have the landmass, the economy, the technology, the minerals, the petroleum and the population all going against us.

[lodi90]

That the “third or fourth largest economy in the world” was unable to deploy a single sub for many months recently because they were too cheap to buy spares should tell you NATO is a zombie. It’s now a political and economic union and nothing more. NATO isn’t going away so it needs to be slimmed down. Closing the pointless HQ in Brussels and the bases in countries not meeting the 2% goal would be a good start.

[nathanbedford]

I emphatically disagree.

It is vital to prevent Europe from uniting with Russia and China for the reasons expressed in my last reply. So long as America interpose itself between Europe and Russia, especially by our presence in Poland, that dependence by Europe on Russia in more than just a supply of energy, is somewhat interdicted.

Trump is on the right course in making the NATO nations pay up. The downside to our NATO exposure, of course, is that many nations of NATO, especially the three Baltics, are really nothing more than tripwires which could draw us into war.

[lodi90]

Time marches on. Economic interests Trump all now. Freedom is being extinguished and darkness falls in Europe. We can fight it and delay it but the Euro-Russia-China economic axis is coming. Europe needs it to support its fascist welfare state.

But for now NATO isn’t going away. I would like to see some big new bases in Poland and the symbolic closing of Ramstein/Landstuhl. Germany needs to pay at least a small price for ignoring its NATO defense obbligations.

[nathanbedford]

Agreed.

[pepsionice]

They’ve been using Russian gas for over 50 years....it’s just that the new pipe will bypass Poland and the Ukraine.

The fact that the revenue funds the Russian military machine? Once you figure that out...why bother with NATO? It’s all a joke then. The US should say we will stay in NATO but remove all but 1,000 troops from Europe, and just stage a single two-week exercise once a year and deploy 40,000 troops into Europe to prove that we can do it in record time.

((I live in Germany, and the natural gas that heats the house...is Russian gas.))

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Germans have forgotten how Russia treated them in 1945.

If you peruse the language in the Marshall Plan, America rebuilt Germany to prevent it from becoming the potato field for Russia.
Russia wanted every piece of industrial machinery packed up and carted east. Germans themselves would become farm slaves to the Soviets.

I doubt much has changed in the Rooskie playbook.

[lodi90]

It’s a second pipe that’s not really needed. The bypass issue is there too. Germany is really flipping the bird here at every country in between in Germany and Russia. Nobody wanted this but them.

[lodi90]

The Europe-Russia-China axis is going to happen. It’s just economic and geographic reality. And Europe is already surrendering it’s liberal values to do it.

[nathanbedford]

I am rather supplies than that no one has accused me of serving up a twentieth century analysis in a 21st-century world. In other words, armies blitzkrieging across borders are not the ultimate danger to the United States, so why does Nathan Bedford serve raise an implication?

The real military threat to the United States, apart from a nuclear exchange which has faced is now for 70 years, will come from space and cyberspace and it will be an entirely new kind of blitzkrieg.

The danger to our civil society, to our constitutional society, is not that we cannot cope militarily or economically with such threats, the danger to our way of life is that we will be so neutered by the left that we will simply surrender. We will simply open the gates to the barbarians after the example of present day Germany.

Do we really think the globalists will see their survival in terms of preservation of the nation state? When Chinese hypersonic missiles or other space-ranged weapons are threatening us from the backside of the moon, can we really expect that a feminist America will rise to "its finest hour"?

China has already proven that it can bore into our elections, our universities, our eleemosynary institutions, our media, our social media and exercise remarkable control.

The problem with Germany and Europe is they are simply further along the path.

[Timocrat]

Absolutely. We need to get out of Europe and leave them to their own devices. If they won’t pay to defend themselves because they need the money to pay for the refugees they take in and the bribes they pay Turkey then we don’t need to fill in the shortfall.