Energy

European Allies Freak Out After Trump Works To Stymie Russian Pipeline

REUTERS/Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Chris White Tech Reporter
Font Size:

One of Europe’s supposed most environmentally friendly countries is criticizing President Donald Trump for trying to prevent construction on a multi-billion-dollar Russian natural gas pipeline.

German officials are pushing back against a Trump administration and U.S. lawmaker-led campaign to kill the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a nearly $10 billion gas line hooking parts of Europe to Russia. Germany is heavily dependent on Russia for its gas and energy supply.

Senate Republicans and Democrats proposed a slew of new sanctions against companies supporting Russian energy export projects. The White House is searching for ways to prevent Russia from dominating Europe’s gas markets.

Germany and Austria have companies helping Russia’s Gazprom with the major pipeline. The Nord Stream is expected to shuttle an additional 55 billion cubic meters of gas directly from Russia to Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the need for EU-Russia talks on the pipeline in early June. She accused the U.S. of politicizing its economic interests in pushing Russia out of Europe’s natural gas market.

“We cannot accept … the threat of illegal extraterritorial sanctions against European companies that participate in the development of European energy supply,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a joint statement with Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern.

Central and Eastern European countries, meanwhile, oppose the project and think that the pipeline would make it more difficult for them to diversify their energy needs. Nord Stream 2 would push 80 percent of Russian gas through Germany.

The U.S. Department of State has noted similar concerns.

“A project that could increase or centralize deliveries of gas through one particular route to Europe is something that ought to be thought about carefully,” Mary Warlick, an official for the international energy affairs at the State Department, told reporters in April.

Germany uses Russian gas as a baseload energy to prop up its less reliable green energy industry. There is evidence that Germany’s reliance on green energy subsidies have caused damage to the country’s electrical grids.

Germany’s subsidies for green energy, for instance, have sharply increased power prices in the country, with the average German paying 39 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity.

Wind and solar power plants in the European country under-performed in January because of cloudy weather with little or no wind, which nearly collapsed the country’s entire grid.

Follow Chris White on Facebook and Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel