De
VS heeft een overschot aan gas en dat moet de EU overnemen, uiteraard
tegen een hele berg geld en een fikse verhoging van de gasprijs voor
de grootste gebruiker van gas: de EU burger..... Van gas LNG maken is
al een kostbaar en milieuvervuilend project, waar bovenop dan nog eens het vervoer
over de Atlantische Oceaan komt........
Intussen
heeft Trump Merkel gewaarschuwd voor het Nord Stream 2 (NS2) project: als
dit project wordt doorgezet, zal de VS een handelsoorlog tegen de EU en m.n. Duitsland beginnen...... M.a.w.: de VS chanteert Duitsland en de EU! Ach zo vreemd is dat
niet, als je ziet dat de VS de grootste terreurentiteit op aarde is
en alleen deze eeuw al meer dan 2 miljoen mensen heeft vermoord in
illegale oorlogen, standrechtelijke executies (o.a. middels drones),
geheime militaire CIA missies, blokkades/sancties (zoals die van de
sjiitische gebieden in Jemen, waar de Saoedische coalitie onder regie
en met hulp van de VS een genocide uitvoert...), georganiseerde
opstanden en staatsgrepen.....
Tyler
Durden schreef over de VS chantage op Zero Hedge, hier de versie
zoals die op Anti-Media verscheen:
US Gives Germany an Ultimatum: Drop Russian Gas Pipeline or Trade War Begins
May
18, 2018 at 12:20 pm
Written by Tyler
Durden
(ZHE) — It became clear just how important it is to the US for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project to fail two months ago when, as we described in “US Threatens Sanctions For European Firms Participating In Russian Gas Pipeline Project“, the U.S. State Department warned European corporations that they will likely face penalties and sanctions if they participate in the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 on the grounds that “the project undermines energy security in Europe”, when in reality Russia has for decades been a quasi-monopolist on European energy supplies and thus has unprecedented leverage over European politics, at least behind the scenes.
“As
many people know, we oppose the Nord Stream 2 project, the US
government does,”
State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert said during a late March
press briefing adding that “the Nord Stream 2 project would
undermine Europe’s overall energy security and stability. It would
provide Russia [with] another tool to pressure European countries,
especially countries such as Ukraine.” And speaking of Ukraine,
recall that in 2014, shortly after the US State Department
facilitated the presidential coup in Ukraine, Joe
Biden’s son Hunter joined the board of
directors of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company. Surely
that was merely a coincidence.
Nauert
also said that Washington may introduce punitive measures against
participants in the pipeline project – which could be implemented
using a provision in the Countering
America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
“The officials said Mr. Trump told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in April that Germany should drop support for Nord Stream 2, an offshore pipeline that would bring gas directly from Russia via the Baltic Sea. This would be in exchange for the U.S. starting talks with the European Union on a new trade deal.”
While
it had long been suspected that Trump would push hard to dismantle
Nord Stream 2 just so US nat gas exporters could grab a slice of the
European market pie, the aggressive push comes as a surprise, and as
the WSJ notes, “the
White House pressure reflects its hard ball tactics on trade, moves
that have contributed to rising tensions between Europe and the U.S.
and raised fears in export-dependent Germany of a tit-for-tat on
tariffs that could engulf its car industry.”
The
Nord Stream II (or NS2) project was started in 2015 is a joint
venture between Russia’s Gazprom and European partners, including
German Uniper, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, Wintershall and the
British-Dutch multinational Royal Dutch Shell. The pipeline is set to
run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea – doubling the
existing pipeline’s capacity of 55 cubic meters per year, and is
therefore critical for Europe’s future energy needs.
NS2
is the second phase of an existing pipeline that already channels
smaller amount of gas from Russia to Germany. Construction for the
second phase started this week in Germany,
after investors committed €5 billion ($5.9 billion) to the venture.
Trump
has publicly criticized the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, saying at a
meeting with Baltic State leaders at the White House this year that
“Germany hooks up a pipeline into Russia, where Germany is going to
be paying billions of dollars for energy into Russia…That’s not
right.”
“Donald
Trump is a deal maker…there is a deal to be made if someone (in
Germany) stood up and said ‘Help us protect our auto industry a
little bit more, because we’re great at it and we’re going to
help you on Nord Stream 2’,” said one U.S. official, who was
present at the April meeting between Ms. Merkel and Mr. Trump.
Raising
the pressure further, Sandra Oudkirk, a senior U.S. diplomat, told
journalists in Berlin on Thursday that as a Russian energy project
the pipeline could face U.S. sanctions, putting any company
participating in it at risk.
* *
*
The
Kremlin shot back immediately as spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the
U.S. efforts “a crude effort to hinder an international energy
project that has an important role in energy security.”
“The
Americans are simply trying crudely to promote their own gas
producers,” he
said.
He
is, of course, right, even if the official explanation is
that Washington
opposes the pipeline because it would make Ukraine—currently the
main transit route for Russian gas headed west—and other U.S.
allies in the EU more vulnerable to Russian pressure. German
officials also say the U.S. is eager to displace Russia as a provider
of gas to Europe, hence confirming with the Russian said.
Of
course, in the end it’s all a question of leverage, and who has
more, and right now Trump believes that by threatening European auto
exports hostage, he has all of it.
* *
*
Still,
that Trump thinks he can interject after three years of trade
negotiations with an abrupt demand while providing no alternatives,
is rather stunning, but understandable. As Alex Gorka of
the Strategic
Culture Foundation wrote,
on March 15, a bipartisan group of 39 senators led by John Barrasso
(R-WY) sent a letter to
the Treasury Department.
They
oppose NS2 and are calling on the administration to bury it.
Why? They
don’t want Russia to be in a position to influence Europe, which
would be “detrimental,” as they put it. And,
as Gorka wrote, their preferred tool to implement this obstructionist
policy is the use of sanctions, precisely what we are seeing
currently.
To
be sure, 39 out of 100 is a number no president can ignore as
powerful pressure emanating from US corporations and lobbies was
being applied on the administration. Even before the senators wrote
their letter, Kurt Volker, the US envoy to Ukraine, had claimed that
NS2 was
a purely political,
not commercial, project.
As
we said in March, “No
doubt other steps to ratchet up the pressure on Europe will follow.”
Little did we know that less than 2 months later, the US and Europe
would be embroiled in a bruising trade war in which the fate of NS2
is suddenly the key variable.
* *
*
So
will Trump win, and will US LNG replace Russian exports?
While
Merkel hasn’t yet dropped her support for the pipeline, she said on
Thursday the EU had agreed at a summit Wednesday night to
offer the U.S. “closer cooperation” in the field of gas in
exchange for a permanent exemption from the steel and aluminum
tariffs, suggesting
that Nord Stream 2 may soon be a trade war casualty.
Should
Europe fold, it should expect a surge in energy inflation: Liquefied
gas from the U.S. needs to be shipped over the Atlantic and
would be considerably more expensive than Russian gas delivered via
pipelines. A
senior EU official working on energy regulation said Russian gas
would be at least 20% cheaper.
“Trump’s
strategy seems to be to force us to buy their more expensive gas, but
as long as LNG is not competitive, Europe will not agree to some sort
of racket and pay extortionate prices,” an EU official said.
Which,
amusingly, is precisely what Trump’s brute trade overture is: an
global racket.
Germany’s
pipeline plan has long been controversial with Ukraine, as well as
several EU countries on the bloc’s eastern edge who fear it gives
Russian President Vladimir Putin power over gas deliveries—which
Berlin has so far largely ignored.
Trump
has been pushing for better access for U.S. companies to an EU market
he has criticized as over-protected. Barring an EU offer to address
Mr. Trump’s grievances, the U.S. will hit Europe with punitive
steel and aluminum tariffs on June 1. The EU has promised retaliatory
tariffs.
* *
*
So
now that the ball is in Merkel’s court, how will she respond?
On Friday, the German chancellor is traveling to Russia on Friday to
meet Vladimir Putin in hopes of brokering a compromise that would
satisfy the U.S. and her European partners.
She will ask Mr. Putin for a deal that would preserve the lucrative transit trade—Ukraine gets a fee for letting Russian gas through its territory on the way to eastern Europe—even after Nord Stream 2 comes online in 2019, a German official said.
Meanwhile,
German government officials say that since all the permits for Nord
Stream 2 have been issued, the WSJ notes that there
is no legal way to stop the project, which is run by Gazprom , the
Russian energy giant, under financing agreements with international
companies such as Engie, OMV, Shell, Uniper and Wintershall.
===============================
Zie ook:
'VS burgers zijn gewaarschuwd: Rusland kan hun hersenen hacken en laten geloven dat Joe Biden niet geschikt is als president'
'Nieuwe Russische hack samenzweringstheorie t.a.v. Joe Biden 'schokt' VS Democraten'
'Hunter Biden zit in de Oekraïense 'witwas val''
'Joe Biden heeft al lang toegegeven dat hij Oekraïne onder druk zette een openbaar aanklager te ontslaan die zijn zoon vervolgde'
'Snowden vindt het ongelofelijk dat de media VS politici niet aanspreken op totaal verschillende reacties n.a.v. 'klokkenluiden''
'Joe Biden (ex-vicepresident VS) heeft zichzelf fiks in de Oekraïense staart gebeten'
'Oekraïne, een mislukte, corrupte en fascistische staat........' (o.a. met aandacht voor Biden en zijn zoon)
'Donald 'Darth Vader' Trump verklaart ruimte tot oorlogsgebied en laat Duitsland en haar bedrijven weten dat men zich heeft te schikken naar de VS wensen'
'VS – Duitse verhouding dreigt te exploderen'
'Alarm Code Geel: Lara Rense (NOS) voedt Rusland-haat' (zie ook de labels in dat bericht)
