WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th January, 2019) President Donald Trump's opposition to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project is about putting "America First" and has almost nothing to do with the interests of US allies in Europe, analysts told Sputnik.
Earlier this month media reported that US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell had sent letters to a number of German companies hinting that Washington could introduce sanctions for supporting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction project, under which Russian natural gas would be brought to Europe.
Trump has been repeatedly attacking the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which is currently under construction and is set to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to the European Union per year - running through the Baltic Sea to a hub in Germany.
Trump while urging European allies to abandon the project has been peddling US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a replacement.
During a speech at the UN General Assembly in September, Trump said Nord Stream 2 would make Germany "totally dependent" on Russian energy, stressing the US readiness to export oil and gas to Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously voiced his belief that Trump was seeking to force Russia out of the European energy market.
University of Rhode Island Professor of Peace Studies Nicolai Petro told Sputnik that the welfare of European citizens is not a factor in Washington's calculus.
"Given the projected increase in demand for energy in Europe over the coming decade, and the exorbitant cost of the liquid natural gas shipped from America, constructing multiple supply routes to Europe, both from and across Russia, is clearly in the best interests of European consumers," Petro said. "The best interests of European consumers, however, are of little concern to the United States government."
The United States has certainly focused on increasing its position in the liquefied national gas (LNG) markets in recent years including in Europe. In fact, LNG exports to customers overseas in combination with more dry gas for expanded pipelines to Mexico helped the US set a new record for natural gas output last year.
As the US government threatens countries like Germany with sanctions, America's private sector appears poised to attempt to penetrate European markets.
German Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier announced on Tuesday that he had invited US LNG exporters to an investment conference in Germany in February to discuss conditions for potential supplies of US gas to the country.
Independent Institute think tank Senior Fellow Ivan Eland, a former national security analyst and investigator for the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Sputnik that the United States has been quite obvious about its motivation as to why it is trying to undermine the Nord Stream 2 project.
"Trump even admits that he's doing it to provide an indirect US government subsidy to the American liquefied natural gas industry," Eland said.
The US government's moves in trying to pressure allies in Europe have been interpreted by some in Moscow and other world capitals as overreach.
In December, the chair of the Russian upper house's foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said US calls on Germany to pull out of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project constituted brusque interference in the affairs of the sovereign state.
Meanwhile, despite this meddling, key stakeholders appear focused on moving the project forward. Russian energy giant Gazprom on Thursday announced that it will invest more than $806 million in the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline in 2019.
Eland predicted that US plans to sanction European allies will likely backfire if history is any guide, citing key developments during the Reagan administration.
In 1982, US European allies delivered a formal notice of protest to the United States for then-President Ronald Reagan's decision to ban pipeline equipment sales to the Soviet Union.
Eland recalled that Reagan tried in vain to prevent the Western European nations from cooperating with Russia at the height of the Cold War to assure secure gas supplies from Siberia.
"Donald Trump is obviously no student of history," Eland said. "One of the most disastrous episodes in Reagan's foreign policy was his attempt to impose extraterritorial sanctions on European allies over their help to the USSR in building a gas pipeline. Reagan, reacting to his allies' fury, had to eventually and ignominiously lift the sanctions."
Trump should also resist the temptation to interfere with and manipulate the global free market in energy supplies with these huge indirect subsidies.
"At least right now, US liquefied natural gas cannot compete in the free market with pipeline gas from Russia," Eland said. "Trump should keep the US government out of such economic transactions."
Petro also indicated that Washington's threats were likely futile and even the imposition of new US economic sanctions on companies participating in the construction of Nord Stream 2 are unlikely to derail the project.
"I doubt that any sanctions can result in Russia losing a significant part of its energy market," Petro said. "Nord Stream 2, after all, is meant to increase in potential supply flows and provide alternatives to insecure Ukrainian transit."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly stressed that Berlin considered the Nord Stream 2 pipeline a commercial project while Russia has insisted that the endeavor does not imply that the transit of Russian gas to the European Union through Ukraine will be terminated.
