German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier claimed that the US is driven by self-interests in order to block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that is to go from Russia to Germany passing round Ukraine, Reuters news agency reported on May 18.
Altmaier stressed that Washington intends to block the project to boost its own shale gas exports:
“They are looking for markets, which we can understand, and they can land it here easily,” he said. “But it is much more expensive than pipeline gas, so blocking Nord Stream 2 on its own won’t guarantee exports.”
The minister pointed out that Europe would respond if the US attempts to put forward its own economic interests:
“The U.S. are our friends and partners, and we want to defend our common values.
“But if it’s America first, and they put their economic interest before others, then they have to expect Europe to define their own interests and fight for them.”
On May 17, quoting German, US and European officials The Wall Street Journal reported that US President Donald Trump pushes Germany “to pull the brakes on a major gas deal” with Russia. Officials pointed out that Trump proposed German Chancellor Angela Merkel negotiations on a new commercial treaty between the EU and the US if Germany pulls out of the deal. If it is not succeed, the EU will face restrictive tariffs on steel and aluminium. Merkel did not reject the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, but agreed to a “closer working partnership” with Washington in the gas sphere.
I am glad Southfront has published an article on this very important geopolitical factor involving the EU, Russia and the USA. It was the lack of any mention of the gas market dynamic that I criticized PCR’s recent article in Southfront regarding Putin strategy to try and weaken the EU – USA relationship. Understanding US efforts to supplant Russia as the main supplier of gas to EU markets is a must if you are going to examine relations involving the USA – EU – Russian triangle in the global chess game.
The article above provides this essential analysis that was missing in PCR’s awkwardly disjointed article. Thank you.
PCR is an idiot. Never trust some one who tells you bad news then laughs.
Is he an idiot or become an agent of disinformation? He and the Saker seem to be putting a lot of opinion out there that is questionable. The high output of course can cause quality of writing and argumentation to take a hit but the themes remain consistent. Also, they both leave out important facts in their analysis that they should be well aware of. I am disappointed but I still find Southfront a worthwhile site, particularly for debate in the comments section as well as articles like the one above.
Note that the trolls actually convey useful information by their memes and who and how they attack. There are also some talented commenters here and look forward to continuing the debate.
I don’t now who PRC is, but I definitely agree with you on the Saker – has he sold out ?, whatever, I cannot fathom his last 3 or 4 posts.
Paul Craig Roberts.
Certainly there is some justification to believe so and I find it noteworthy that the two of them seem to be as of late the primary sources of opinion relied upon by Southfront.
Southfront has been subject to increasing intensity of attacks in various forms which means the site has been noticed and deemed a threat to the ‘official doctrine’. Southfront should take these developments as a compliment since it implies effectiveness and reach.
I have also noticed, unfortunately, a tendency for effective sites to become co-opted which eventually undermines credibility and trust in the site. I used to read Al-Jazeera English regularly years ago for differing perspectives you would not see in the Western MSM. To my dismay, I found over a few short years Al-Jazeera transform into ‘CNN’. One of the glaring indicators was the sharp decline in the quality of opinion pieces. One contributor rose to prominent status as a regular contributor despite being ex-NATO officer, had served in UK intelligence and was currently part of a right wing think tank known for providing articles favourable to US intervensionist policies. Worse, is Al-Jazeera did not disclose his past affiliations and regarding current association, disclosed only he worked for an organization that studies international politics. Well his rabidly pro-Western ‘opinion’ would have made Goebbels blush. Soon readers savaged the author in the comment section. Al-Jazeera was also heavily criticized for obscuring the opinion writers past and present affiliations.
I now rarely read Al-Jazeera. I hope not to be saying the same of Southfront in the near future.
Same – same mate, across the board, that could have been me writing your comment.
I do not want to lose SF, they must get moderators as the trolls are coming in numbers now – same as RT + RI.
Or, diligent and honest commenters can serve to moderate the trolls. The trolls do convey useful information though if you examine what they say, who they target and what the target is saying. Also, the articles with the most active trolling is suggestive of which topics are most sensitive.
So we keep commenting and persevere. As activists say; Silence = Death
Exactly, that is what they had on RI, but when they got rid of them the shills moved in.
http://www.end-times-prophecy.org/animal-deaths-birds-fish-end-times.html
Have followed the Saker for a while. He just cancelled a planned trip to Russia due to health. He lives in Florida. I’d hate to think he’s been compromised but it would not surprise me.
US LNG is expensive and not competitive with Russian piped gas, I would not trust Trump in any trade negotiations with EU, his motto of America first at the expense of everybody lease is loud and clear. US natural gas and oil frackers owe probably hundreds of billions to banks, therefore their goal is to sell their gas and oil at high prices. True capitalism works on the basis of supply and demand, without specific political and economic arm twisting.
True capitalism would be a treat.
Wall Street maligned the concept of true capitalism with their globalization of US economic industrial assets. Trump should hold Wall Street responsible for the economic trade imbalances and impose a fine of 10 trillion or more dollars on them, instead of arm twisting the Europeans and the Chinese.
Pretty sure the arm twisting on Wall street is a one way deal. How can you bite the hand that feeds you? Eventually the Europeans could revolt. The refugee thing was not a pleasant form of collateral damage from all the regime change projects.
Paying the bribe to the Ukrainians for Russian gas gets old and the one thing you know when you make a deal with the US is you are gonna be the loser, one way or another.
US is in a economic decline, these tariffs and political pressure to afford them special economic rights and privileges is a sign of weakness, not strength.
Those days are past for now, now we have this “Globalism” instead of Capitalism.
Good point about true capitalism, that is, it exists only in fairy land. All governments manipulate markets to their advantage when possible and the USA, the great champion of free market capitalism, is probably the worst of them all.
As for selling at high prices, it is a reflection of tight oil and gas being expensive to produce and add to that the expense of shipping over seas for gas has to be LNG. And yes, I am sure they are owned, I mean owe, lots to the banks.
However, while the EU gas market is big and lucrative, for me it does not seem enough on its own to justify how the US is being so belligerent with the EU on this. I felt there must be additional reasons other than just entry into a new market for LNG exports. Well I did not have to think to long to realize that transactions would have to be in US dollars while Russia is dropping the US dollar in its energy trade.
Sustaining US broad spectrum hegemony is to a large degree possible due to US dollar reserve status and requirement that energy trade be transacted in US dollars. This is why the high correlation of being branded enemy of the US and countries that move to stop transacting in US$ – as opposed to the official US policy based on democratic principles and human rights where the correlation is actually nil.
The reserve status of the US$ is under threat and the US is desperate. So brow beating the EU into replacing Russian gas with US LNG is driven by long standing policy to protect reserve currency status and energy transacted in US$ is a key pillar of that strategy. Russia and the EU I am sure are aware of this and know the US will grow more desperate as the assault on US$ continues to erode its reserve status. Eventually the EU will break with the US unless the US turns things around which is unlikely in my view.
Your point I said well taken, they are defending the petrodollar by boosting domestic gas and oil production through fracking, they owe hundreds of billions in loans, when oil prices were in the 20’s there was an imminent danger these companies would default creating another financial crisis……so the oil prices recovered quickly.
Trump’s mindset towards EU is, NATO members did not spend 2% of their GDP on defense needs for the last 20-25 years, buying US LNG and paying high prices compared to Russian piped gas, is a means to remedy this deficiency in military spending.
Simply stated Trump is saying, you pay me if you want protection, and you will pay me in dollars.
Id say this is more mafia style protection racket. You have to know that the military after pro-western coups in Eastern Europe especially was effectively disbanded. This is why you see so much warsaw pact hardware still fueling wars. I do not know if it was on Yank orders, but possibly so. You should know that we entered NATO not by referendum, but by new coup authorities, media all played together with them. It was just 5 years after they bombed Yugoslavia and they let US bombers fly over our country. Betrayal is what it is. You should understand that most people do not feel any sympathy or the need to defend the regime the US basically installed. In other words, most people when they realize that we are US pawn, have little interest in going to military, perhaps only for financial gain, since the pay is pretty good. 2% of GDP of a rich country is a lot of money. In 1968 30% of GDP went there. And we werent very poor either. In other owrds, US forced itself into former warsaw pact countries. They werent invited, there were no referenda, nothing. We dont want U.S. protection racket, neither their color revolutions with their buddy Soros helping. US is a hypocrite. They want to stay here, want more bases which they wanted but were rebuked. But they at the same time say that we somehow need them. If you dont buy weapons from USA, democracy is suddenly threatened.
US moved eastward as communist regimes folded, after the Berlin Wall collapsed, having a hand in the selection of leadership that was suitable for them, Russia included. Hence Warsaw Pact dissolved, NATO should have dissolved as well. Gorbachev should not have trusted Regan and Bush, the neocon movement was in its infancy, agreements should have been documented and signed by both parties.
As far as protection racket, US uses Europe as a buffer zone for its self interests, if a war was to take place in Europe, US would not care what happens to Europe, the same way they did not show much concern for S. Korea or Japan when they were talking about attacking N.Korea militarily.
politologexternista briefly
True capitalism works on the basis of enriching the to 1% of society at the expense of the rest.
The 1% benefited from the globalization process for the last 3 decades, before, as companies and countries had more sovereign fiber, the distribution of wealth was more even handed. Also quantitative easing and 0 interest rate policies devised by the central banks contributed to the 1% to get wealthier, by doing absolutely nothing tangible.
Agreed, and that is why the supply-demand law no longer applies. The ‘law’ is to squeeze as much as poss out of the 99% come what may.
These stories give us the real insight into what the fighting is all about.
“The U.S. are our friends and partners, and we want to defend our common values.”
“But if it’s America first, and they put their economic interest before others, then they have to expect Europe to define their own interests and fight for them.”
Ok, now a little action to back up those words. I wonder how many Europeans think boosting the NATO forces to stop Russia from invading is money well spent? Seems to me the Russian’s got enough geography and the task of controlling a population that is out of control now seems like a good reason to not invade.
The Russians have openly said who wants Ukraine and all it’s problems. Crimea, not so many problems and of course their long term lease in Sevastopol was the real goal of the West sponsored coupe in the first place.
That port city has Russia’s only year round ice free port and an obvious target for Western seizure. There is even a document that shows the NATO put out a tender for a new base in Sevastopol 6 months before the coupe. But the Russians are arrogant, I gotcha!
Russias move on Crimea with a vote really upset the USA who werent going to lease anything. They were going to take it!!
Sorry, Russian population out of control ?, please explain as I am eager to know your mind think.
NATO says Russia wants to invade Europe, I was trying to say Europe’s population is out of control. Will edit it slightly, thanks my bad.
Fuck off Yanks, your bore us now, you dumb, war mongering POS. You are no billy no mates, so go and try your democratic, exceptional economics elsewhere.
As always, Southfront finds a way. Thank You Spi
Of course this is sour grapes all around. Does this guy really expect the US to put Germany’s agenda ahead of its own? And will South Front litterally take any excuse to call the US names? SF really needs to stop using diplomatic rhetoric as if it were official policy or something.
I think the article is looking at the dynamic regarding how the interests of the EU and the US coincide on some issues and diverge on others. Clearly the issue of energy security for the EU is at odds with US interests but US policy towards the EU is quite high handed, suggesting the US is confident that coinciding interests are strong enough for the US to succeed. However, energy security is a big deal and US interference to the detriment of the EU is certainly putting the strength of EU/USA ties to the test.
Note the Iran about face and sanctions is annoying to the EU, but it is the ongoing issue of energy security that is far more important in testing the resilience of the EU/USA relationship and Putin knows this.
The US presence in Ukraine Syria Libya Afghanistan Yemen and even Myanmar is all about control of global oil and gas supplies. The Europeans want to buy gas from Russia,BAD, buy gas from Iran, BAD, buy gas from USA, GOOD. And because American gas is GOOD, you pay 20% more, and if you make trouble we cut the supply.
“German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier claimed that the US is driven by self-interests in order to block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline”
really now! wow! when are you germans going to get off your wurst and see that you are vassals of the u.s.? what is it going to take before you wake up. How old are you Peter?
These EU leaders only need look around at the deals the US never keeps their promises mean nothing. The people of the EU should once and for all speak out against their slavery towards the US.Where’s the pride.?As a Canadian Im always screaming at my Govt to stop the kiss asking it shames all of us Canadians.as I’m sure it bothers the American people as well.Perhaps what we need is an all out war between those who dare go against the West Nothing will change until someone or everyone puts the US in its place.. I mean look at this world look who’s causing hell on earth. BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE US if they were gone well its not hard to imagine a better happier world.
When will those sycophantic European pussies stand up for their rights, tell Trump to go do it to himself, and slap the stiffest of counter-sanctions, incl. secondary ones, on US companies?
Oh well, wishful thinking I guess, and Trump knows and uses it.