Trade: Joe Biden also wants to stop Nord Stream 2

Trade: Joe Biden also wants to stop Nord Stream 2

Trade: Joe Biden plans to cease the Nord Stream 2 project and apparently wishes to end the Russian-German project.

 

Laying vessel for Nord Stream 2 Akademik Cherskiy at Mukran ferry port: "If the pipeline certification is restricted, it will be quite difficult to complete".

 

Not only the Republicans of US President Trump are resolute opponents of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. Democrat Joe Biden also apparently wants to put an end to the Russian-German energy project.

 

Trump News: With Donald Trump's defeat in the US presidential election, there are many hopes in Germany that trade relations between Washington and Berlin will improve. One of the biggest points of contention was recently the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline, which is supposed to bring Russian natural gas to Germany - and was sanctioned by the Trump administration shortly before its completion. But anyone who had hoped that the US would be more benevolent towards the billion-dollar project under a Democratic President Joe Biden must be disappointed.

 

As reported by the US news agency Bloomberg, Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress have agreed on the heaviest trade sanctions to date against Nord Stream 2. The planned punitive measures are therefore directed against insurers of companies and ships involved in the construction of the pipeline as well as companies for technical certification. The agreed measures are part of a defence bill that Bloomberg says will be passed later this year and signed by Joe Biden next year.

 

Biden: Nord Stream 2 "fundamentally bad trade"

 

Biden News: In a foreign policy strategy paper, the US President-elect described Nord Stream 2 during the election campaign as "fundamentally bad trade" which he wanted to combat. "If the certification of the pipeline is restricted, its completion should be quite difficult," quoted Bloomberg Mitch Jennings, an analyst at Moscow financial investor Sova Capital. Perhaps Nord Stream 2 AG would have to find a certifier who is prepared to be sanctioned."

 

The new trade sanctions would complement those imposed by US President Trump in December 2019. They are directed against companies that are directly involved in the construction of the pipeline. The US government also threatened the Baltic cities of Sassnitz and Lubmin with sanctions. The pipes for the pipeline construction are in the Sassnitz ferry port, and the Russian natural gas is to arrive in Lubmin. Most recently, the pressure on the German government to stop the project increased after the alleged poison attack on Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny. So far, Angela Merkel has stuck to Nord Stream 2.

 

The outgoing US President Trump has been criticizing Nord Stream 2 for years and accuses Germany of allowing itself to be militarily protected from Russia, but at the same time providing Moscow with high revenues from gas exports. US senators had already announced an expansion of the trade sanctions. Of the total of 2,460 kilometres of the pipeline, only 150 are missing. It stretches alongside the Nord Stream pipeline, which has been delivering fuel to Germany since the end of 2011.