Washington shows where its priorities lie

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on Wednesday that the United States had abandoned sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 operator, Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO Matthias Warnig.

The US announcement came as Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met on the sidelines of an Arctic Council meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, the first highprofile talks between the two countries under the Joe Biden’s administration.

But while the Kremlin praised the move, it was primarily aimed at easing tensions between Washington and Berlin over the project, as the Biden administration is desperate to mend its ties with Germany in exchange for the latter’s support for its China policy.

As the largest economy in the European Union, Germany has been affected by the “green energy storm” in recent years and imported natural gas is a key means for it to achieve its carbon neutrality goal. The German government responded fiercely to the US sanctions aimed at halting construction on the pipeline, denouncing it as “crude interference in its internal affairs”.

The US, having finally realized that it cannot provide Germany with enough natural gas to end its reliance on that from Russia, has now in effect given a green light to the project in the hope that Germany will be more likely to support its geopolitical games targeting China.

So the US’ opposition to Nord Stream 2 will become more symbolic than practical from now on, and it will be trying its best to get Germany to stand beside it in its efforts to stall China’s rise.

Germany is now the most outspoken country urging the EU to engage in win-win cooperation with China and pursue independence in diplomacy. Ironically, the US’ attempts to wean Germany off its reliable and economical source of natural gas pose the most serious and immediate threat to Germany’s energy security.

Essentially, the sanctions the US imposed on the entities and individuals involved in the pipeline, which it previously imposed even on those of its allies, are nothing but open interference in normal energy cooperation between two other countries, trampling on basic norms of international relations.

The strong opposition to the “compromise” from both the Republicans and the Democrats in the Congress might trigger a bipartisan backlash in the future, demonstrating the many facets of the difficulty the country has created for itself through making enemies everywhere and breaking rules.