Biden Administration "Surrenders" to Germany on Russian Gas Pipeline
by Soeren Kern • August 4, 2021 at 5:00 am
"The willingness of the administration to make decisions of this magnitude without consulting the countries most exposed will not be lost on other parts of the world. Jerusalem and Riyadh, for example, are no doubt already strategizing around the potential of facing a surprise similar to the one that Washington just delivered to Warsaw and Kyiv." — Kiron Skinner and Russell Berman, Foreign Policy, July 26, 2021.
"The lesson learned by Germany is that it can pursue its own inclinations of doing business with dictators regardless of principles and with no consequences from Washington. More dangerously, the lesson for Moscow and Beijing is that sanctions for international aggression will never be sustained for very long. The Biden administration has made the fragile international order even less secure." — Kiron Skinner and Russell Berman, Foreign Policy, July 26, 2021.
"The project creates conditions for Russia's escalation of military aggression against Ukraine, as well as the continuation of a hybrid war against the EU and NATO.... This Russian pipeline threatens the national security not only of Ukraine, but also of all of Europe." — Ukrainian Parliament, July 21, 2021.
"The U.S.-German deal is embarrassingly weak. It relies on a vague assurance that after Putin ramps up the blackmail enabled by the deal, Germany will take unspecified actions in response.... Overall, Biden handed Putin the biggest gift he's received in years. He also signaled to Putin that when push comes to shove, the American president is weak and will bow to political pressure." — U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Washington Examiner, July 22, 2021.
"Remarkably, Washington agreed to end its opposition to the project without any recognizable benefit in exchange: Merkel has neither promised increased engagement for NATO nor more clarity about China. The compromise between Biden and Merkel is not a compromise at all, but an American capitulation." — Robin Alexander, Die Welt, July 21, 2021.
The Biden administration has reached an agreement with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that allows for the completion of a controversial natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
The July 21 deal to complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany by transporting the gas under the Baltic Sea, has angered the leaders of many countries in Eastern and Western Europe; they argue that it will effectively give Moscow a stranglehold over European gas supplies and open the continent to Russian blackmail.
Both the Obama and Trump administrations steadfastly opposed the pipeline on the grounds that, once completed, it would strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin's economic and political influence over Europe.
