Nord Stream 2 is the 1,222-kilometer pipeline being laid in the Baltic seabed which will greatly increase delivery of natural gas from Russia to Germany. It will double Germany’s import of Russian gas when complete. But the Trump administration has repeatedly voiced its objection to the project, claiming that it will give Moscow undue political leverage over Europe. Trump has warned of sanctions on participating companies, which include German and Austrian firms.
The flagrant ulterior agenda is seen as the US trying to undermine German-Russian energy trade, for the purpose of selling more expensive American liquefied natural gas to Europe.The article linked here is mostly about the US ambassador's supposed arrogance toward Germany's policies and elite
Richard Grenell, however, has openly flouted these norms and acted as an unabashed mouthpiece for Trump, echoing the president’s contempt for the German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The upshot, according to Der Spiegel, is that Grenell has become politically isolated in Berlin. Merkel “keeps him at a distance” and most politicians, except for the AfD, have shunned his contact.Normally the US subverts the politics of lesser nations, of course. This would be an epic flipping of the script. The US State Department has been helping gin up color revolutions against intransigent states to bring them into the friendly camp of post-national states. What if we started encouraging the nationalist, anti-immigration mood?
Trump in his boorish style is merely laying bare the long-presumed US hegemony over Germany. And it’s not a pretty sight. Berlin is being shamed into having to be seen to stand up to this American bullying.Good for Berlin, if it's forced into national sefl-esteem, even if it's a threat to money and power and not to women and children that compels her.
Grenell, who was Mitt Romney's foreign policy guy for his 2012 presidential campaign, appears to come from a neoconservative background and is hawkish toward Iran, but has taken up the cause of nationalism
In an interview with the far-right news outlet Breitbart over the weekend, Richard Grenell, who has been in office for less than a month, said: “I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders.We've interfered with the politics, up to invasion, of nations with no democratic legacy, ostensibly on behalf of populations oppressed by governments that hate them.
I'd say Germany qualifies as such. Grenell might lack nuance--why not soft-peddle the criticism of the German establishment and talk to AfD?--but it's encouraging to a nationalist and friend of Europe to see the emerging potential for a genuine global alliance of nationalists.
