Posted on 12/17/2019 11:36:16 AM PST by NorseViking
Washington (AFP) - The US Senate voted Tuesday to slap sanctions on companies working on Russia's Nord Stream pipeline, sending a bill to President Donald Trump that is sure to antagonize European nations counting on the project's natural gas.
The measure, inserted into a huge annual defense spending bill, passed 86 to eight after easily clearing the House of Representatives last week.
It aims to halt further construction of the $10.6 billion pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea and is set to double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany.
The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce said last week the pipeline was important for the energy security of Europe and called for retaliatory sanctions on the US if the bill passes.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Democrats are protecting their Ukrainian gas ties.
veto
Not for nothing but I disagree. This is a necessity of life.
The Democrats and their affiliates of boards of Ukrainian gas company don’t want the gas to flow by.
Putin ordered Trump to sanction this pipeline.
I fail to see any US interest underpinning this dumb move.
Follow the money. It is not about European security since everyone in Europe except Ukraine and Poland wants the pipeline.
Inserted into the defense bill
Crappy legislation with foreign policy repercussions vs our allies, that impacts our strategic interests...all bundled up as a defense bill
I have been against this for a long time, but it’s not the business of our Congress to level sanctions over it.
What’s next, sanctions on the UK for Brexit?
If the Europeans want to put themselves in the position of being blackmailed or die, I say let them.
The next time Russia gets upset in November, we can watch the global warming crowd cheer as millions freeze to death.
Logically, we are spending a lot of money on NATO defense vs Russia, while this brings Russian gas into Germany and adds to their future energy vulnerability
So yeah, we have skin in the game
I dont know which worries our global establishment and hidebound foreign policy experts more
That Russia and Germany may be at war sometime in the future...or that they wont be
I don’t really understand this move as a “security related” issue (at least from reading the article)
Is this as simple as the Left trying to keep painting Russia as an enemy to somehow bolster their hysterical slanderous case against Trump in the public eye?
I have no love lost for Russia. I think as a country, they still wish ill on us for breaking up the Soviet Union. I think they are corrupt, I think they are monkeying around in our internal politics, but hell, who isn’t?
But if our contention is that the Europeans should buy gas from the USA instead of Russia simply because we don’t want them to have more clout, then I don’t agree with that. I am fully on board with sanctions against Iran and every sanction we have laid on Cuba, and I am all in on tariffs on Red China, but...I can’t see any reason why we should be doing this.
I am not all that concerned with people who dislike us possibly disliking us even more for meddling, but I would rather have a good reason for it than what I read in that article.
Can someone explain this in terms of national security, which is the bin it seems to have been placed in?
The Democrats on board on Ukrainian gas company. They want the gas to flow exclusively through Ukraine so they would set exorbitant transit fees and get superprofit.
Russia gets a lot of money off the gas sales to Germany. Why should it go to war with Germany?
That I understand well enough, the Ukrainians simply don’t want Russia to get the piece of the gas “pie” that they want for themselves.
Why the support for this bill...is it simply all the Left and RINOs, and is that circling back to the entire Trump-Russia issue?
And is Trump going to sign it so someone might view him as being hard on the Russians?
None of this really makes sense to me. I don’t like it, and if it is simply an issue of Ukrainian gas (with kickbacks to American Leftist politicians) over Russian gas and having Europeans put at the mercy of depending on Russia for energy, I say we keep out of it.
LOL, you’ve got a pretty good grasp of that one.
Logically, we are spending a lot of money on NATO defense vs Russia, while this brings Russian gas into Germany and adds to their future energy vulnerability.
How does the addition of a pipeline, one of the safest methods for transporting fuel, detract from Europes energy security? This is nothing but a bully move by the Uniparty to secure their bribes from Ukraine.
So yeah, we have skin in the game
So then lets take our skin out of the game, leave NATO, and stay out of what is a domestic European issue.
There is no Ukrainian gas to speak of. The original historic pipeline to pump Russian gas to Europe is in Ukraine. That historically gave Ukraine a power to set transit fees the way it see fit, to siphon some for itself for free or block transit.
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