{"id":43928,"date":"2019-02-21T07:51:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T12:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43928"},"modified":"2019-02-21T07:51:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T12:51:15","slug":"merkel-stands-against-trumps-energy-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43928","title":{"rendered":"Merkel Stands Against Trump\u2019s Energy Dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Merkel<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Merkel Stands Against Trump\u2019s Energy Dominance<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s speech at the Munich Security Conference this weekend was met with resounding approval from the gathering. Throwing barbs back at US Vice President Mike Pence over a myriad of issues Merkel expressed Europe\u2019s dissatisfaction with the Trump administration\u2019s belligerence and lack of diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s putting it mildly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s pressuring Germany over the Nordstream 2 pipeline, withdrawing from the JCPOA and increasing NATO funding all have a common theme which even for an EU-firster like Merkel is a non-starter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is trying to make Germany\u2019s economy uncompetitive by raising the cost of imported energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is obvious when we look at the US\u2019s opposition to Nordstream 2. Trump has made no bones about his distaste for the pipeline because he\u2019d rather Germany, his ally, buy beautiful, clean LNG from Cheniere in Louisiana rather than from dirty, nasty gas from Russia, his enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other two issues, however, are just as energy-focused for Trump, or at least, economically-focused. Let\u2019s start with Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 when it looked like the Operation to Blow Apart Syria for Fun and Profit was on the verge of victory. Giving Iran a lifeline to begin selling oil on the open market again was Europe\u2019s \u2018get\u2019 in that war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey would \u2018get\u2019 Idlib, Aleppo, Afrin and Manbij. The Saudis and Qataris would \u2018get\u2019 gas pipelines into Europe. Israel breaks up the Shia Crescent with the newly-independent Kurdish territory and \u2018get\u2019 a US\/Israeli campaign to undermine Iran\u2019s government while leaving a hotbed of terrorism to export around the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elijah Magnier called this creating a \u2018Syrian jungle.\u2019 I just call it vile<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it didn\u2019t work because of Putin, Hezbollah and the IRGC with China playing silent partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merkel Stands Against Trump\u2019s Energy Dominance German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s speech at the Munich Security Conference this weekend was met with resounding approval from the gathering. Throwing barbs back at US Vice President Mike Pence over a myriad of issues Merkel expressed Europe\u2019s dissatisfaction with the Trump administration\u2019s belligerence and lack of diplomacy. And that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[7844,281,8203,16963],"class_list":["post-43928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-donald-trump","tag-europe","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-tom-luongo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43929,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43928\/revisions\/43929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}