As Trump Riles Europe on Trade, Putin Offers More Natural Gas

U.S. officials also are making the rounds in Europe, with less impact.

SEATTLE (Oil Monster): As Donald Trump’s trade policy risk worsening economic conflict with Europe Union, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is strengthening ties with the region.

Putin will mark 50 years of gas exports to Europe at an event in Vienna on Tuesday. A controversial 9.5 billion-euro ($11 billion) pipeline to feed more supplies from Siberia directly into Germany is progressing despite a U.S. sanctions threat. And Moscow-based Gazprom PJSC last month settled a seven-year-old pricing dispute with the European Union, enabling it to expand its market share.

Russia’s success in tightening its grip on Europe’s fuel supply contrasts with friction in the trans-Atlantic relationship, after the U.S. president’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and slap tariffs on steel imports. Those moves have left the European partners in the new Russian pipeline wondering whether they can get around any sanctions that Trump deploys.

“Trump is forcing the Europeans closer to the Russians,” Stefan Meister, Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, said in an interview. “This is playing right into Putin’s hands.”

U.S. officials also are making the rounds in Europe, with less impact. State Department envoys have appeared in Berlin, Copenhagen and Brussels in recent weeks warning that the Gazprom-sponsored Nord Stream 2 pipeline will leave Europe too dependent on Russia for its energy supply.

Courtesy: www.bloomberg.com