Eric Zuesse
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at The Saker
A German equivalent to UK’s Financial Times and America’s Wall Street Journal is the Dusseldorf Handelsblatt or “Commerce Sheet,” which headlined on June 30th, “Former Chancellor Schröder: USA Ending Transatlantic Partnership”.
They reported:
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has condemned possible new US sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline as “deliberate termination of the transatlantic partnership.” A draft law currently under discussion in the US Congress is “a widespread, unjustified attack on the European economy and an unacceptable interference with EU sovereignty and the energy security of Western Europe,” Schröder writes in his statement for a public hearing of the Economic Committee scheduled for Wednesday in the Bundestag.
The article closes:
Schröder sees the relations with the USA as “heavily burdened” by “escalating tariffs and going it alone” policy by the Americans. Schröder writes: “Economic fines against a NATO ally during the current economic recession are nothing other than a deliberate termination of the transatlantic partnership.”
This is as if Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama were to say that EU policymakers had a trade policy toward the U.S. that is so hostile and uncooperative that in order to comply with it, the U.S. would have to subordinate itself to the EU and lose some of its own sovereignty, and as if he were to tell the U.S. Congress that for them to okay the EU’s demands in this matter would be “nothing other than a termination of the transatlantic partnership.”
Congress has not yet passed this legislation (new economic sanctions legislation that is co-sponsored in the U.S. Senate by Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen) but it (“S.1441 – Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019”) enjoys strong bipartisan support and has been considered almost certain to be passed in both houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump. It is not a partisan issue in the United States.
Neither is it partisan in Germany. Both of Germany’s main political Parties (Schröder being SDP) support strongly the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which will be considerably more economical for supplying natural gas to the EU than would be the U.S. Government’s demand that American shipped fracked liquified natural gas be used, instead of Russian pipelined natural gas, in Europe. Though this U.S. legislative initiative is called “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security,” its overwhelming support in the U.S. Congress is instead actually for protecting U.S. fracking corporations. The bill’s title is only for ‘patriotic’ propaganda purposes (which is the typical way that legislation is named in the United States — as a sales-device, so as to sound acceptable not only to the billionaires who fund the Parties but also to the voters on election day).
Both of America’s political Parties are significantly funded by America’s domestic producers of fracked gas. One of the few proud achievements of U.S. President Obama that has been proudly continued by President Trump has been their boosting U.S. energy production, largely fracked gas, so as to reduce America’s foreign-trade deficit. However, if this control over the U.S. Government by frackers continues, then there now exists a strong possibility, or even a likelihood, that the transatlantic alliance will end, as a result.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
EU will be a lot better off in a solid alliance with Russia.
If it happens, that would be a huge, historic, change. A new world.
Germany has already been subject to hidden US sanction. The diesel ‘scandal’, something every major car maker in the world was also guilty of, but only German car makers were singled out and fined to the tune of billions were just that – hidden sanctions. Germany set a small signal by letting the leading VW execs off the hook in their trials with fines that were paid by the companies and no jail time. Rather small signal. Essentially Europe is powerless because it has given up all power and has taken the knee too often. The increased defense spending is… Read more »
Germany fine tuned its 02 sensors, now it looks to deal with America’s hot air and fric-frac’n fart gas.
Whenever US fracking is mention, it should always be mentioned that it is heavily subsidized by the US because it operates at a cost level that is well above oil price. US fracking needs between $55 and $80 a barrel to break even. No industry would survive for that long while consistently operating at a loss.
The US cannot afford to let go of this industry because that is where so many well paying jobs are. The loss of the fracking industry would create massive poverty among many of the rather well of middle class. Another problem Trump inherited.
US-EU alliance? EU membership was just a convenient vehicle to channel USNATO into new members. They came hand in hand at US insistence. Wonder why.
I have noticed that the Democrats are incorporating Trump’s foriegn policies ,where they seem useful,the sanctions on Nordstream project were done by Trump for economic nationalism,or you could call it a Tony Soprano gangster style foriegn policy,a kind of you buy our gas or else,much of Trump’s foriegn policies will remain, like forcing mideast countries to sign peace treaties wirh Israel..p.s.,the Gaulist route is a better way for Europe..