
Germany Calls for European Firewall Against U.S. Sanctions - jtangelder
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-calls-for-european-firewall-against-u-s-sanctions-11577459502
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jplayer01
This is all about German politicians who've been bought out by Russian
interests trying to protect their pet project(s). Speaking as a German, the
fact that Germany would rather deal with and be reliant on a country like
Russia is, frankly, insane and incredibly shameful. It's as if Ukraine didn't
happen, nor Russian interference of elections across the Western world. For
all the bad that the US does, at least they don't invade and annex European
countries, and try to undermine European politics.

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mschuster91
> For all the bad that the US does, at least they don't invade and annex
> European countries, and try to undermine European politics.

Another German here. I find Putin and Russia absolutely revolting, but that
last part is utter propaganda. The US has meddled in European politics for
decades - just take Trump's stupid whining against BMW or Bush/Obama's
complaints about NATO budget or us Germans not joining the fun in Iraq.

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syshum
>>just take Trump's stupid whining against BMW

I can not find anything current but if you are talking about his statements on
the MX plant, he does that to every Manufacturer that sell items in the US but
does not manufacturer them here (at least in part).

Trump is a nationalist and loves protectionism, he believes that Products sold
in the US should be made in the US. Thus BMW building a plant in Mexico to
sell cars to the US goes against what he wants which is a US Factory employing
US Workers. He has done the same to other Auto companies including both Ford
and GM

>> Bush/Obama's complaints about NATO budget

Umm a large number of Presidents have complained about the other nations not
paying their fair share into NATO as part of the agreements all nations
signed, Germany does not spend enough of thier GDP on NATO, instead the US has
to disproportionately fund world defense...

Then we get to be lectured by the EU about why we do not have Universal
Healthcare which in part because we need to spend soo much on world defense
because the other nations refuse to

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pgeorgi
> he believes that Products sold in the US should be made in the US.

Let's ensure that software and media sold in Europe are made in Europe. (not
that Trump minds: both hit California for the most part and he doesn't care
about CA)

> Germany does not spend enough of their GDP on NATO, instead the US has to
> disproportionately fund world defense

And now that the EU is planning a defense fund (which will help on that
particular front, and also improve EU's capabilities so that there's less
real-or-perceived reliance on the US) the US complains again because they
don't get to sell their crap overseas.

Hypocrites.

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H8crilA
It is beyond me for the German state to call for "EU unity" because of a
project that is essentially a huge "fuck you" to Eastern Europe. If anything
the EU should back the US sanctions to protect unity, as weird as it sounds.

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praptak
This particular case is pretty bad for getting EU to unite.

Nordstream is contentious within EU too - it's basically a way for Russia to
threaten Poland with the gas cutoff without endangering their business with
Germany.

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jtangelder
Full article at Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/egorb9/comment/fc82...](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/egorb9/comment/fc82ydj)

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ConsiderCrying
Openly calling for cooperation with Russia and China, of all places, should be
political suicide. But it seems like the message of 'let's protect ourselves
from /insert boogeyman/' still works well enough to muddy public opinion.

The sanctions are there for a reason and saying that you need protection
against them is like saying 'well, they did a bad thing and got a slap on the
wrist, the obvious conclusion is to keep doing bad things but fend off the
slaps'.

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koksik202
Since US is starting to be a supplier of gas to Central European counties such
as Poland via the gas carrying vessels and some countries trying to gain
energy independence from Russia it becomes an interest of US not to lose the
newly acquired buyers of their gas. Then it is problematic for countries like
Germany that they can't boost the import because of US interference

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richliss
The disrespect that Germany is showing the US is mind boggling. The US being
part of NATO is the greatest deal the other countries have ever
signed/received. The US spends nearly $700 Billion per year compared to
Germany’s nearly $56 Billion per year on its military.

The US needs to start sending ultimatums - you are either part of NATO and
therefore don’t enrich Russia by buying their resources and pay your fair
share (2%) at the very least or we’re going to pull out of NATO and have a
treaty with just Estonia, Greece, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Britain who
all meet the treaty conditions of 2% and don’t whine.

If NATO ended and Germany had to build up and army capable of defending itself
against Russia it would cost way more than 2% per year.

All Europeans need to understand the financial burden US tax payers meet to
keep us safe. I think the Brits realise how important it is and the Poles and
the Baltic’s do because they know what it’s like to live under Russian
military fear.

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Youden
> The US spends nearly $700 Billion per year compared to Germany’s nearly $56
> Billion per year on its military.

The US spends that much by choice, not necessity.

> All Europeans need to understand the financial burden US tax payers meet to
> keep us safe.

Safe from what? The US military hasn't fought to protect anybody since WWII
and there's frankly no realistic threat that Europe needs to be protected
from. The EU already spends three times as much on its military as Russia and
two (soon to be one) EU members are nuclear states.

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TazeTSchnitzel
And the US's recent meddling in the Middle East arguably made things “worse”
in Europe, if the large number of refugees is to be considered a problem.

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etaioinshrdlu
The politics on this issue seem quite confusing. It might point to a lot of
internal infighting within the politics of both Europe and the US.

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Tomte
While Nord Stream 2 is obviously beneficial to Germany (cheaper gas than from
the US), there are two totally different interests working against the
project:

* The Eastern European states (and especially Ukraine) want Germany to rely on pipelines going through their countries, so that Germany – as a big player – can be relied on to be working with those states when there is a conflict with Russia. (I find that interest well-founded and a debatable reason to refrain from building the pipeline)

* The United States want Germany to buy more (liquefied) gas from them. Quite a few gas terminals have been built in recent years, and America is keen on selling its oil to Europe, because with all that fracking they aim to be a primary supplier of gas in the world. (I do not consider that a valid reason, and if it were the only one, Nord Stream 2 would be a no-brainer, in my opinion).

It's all been complicated even further by Germany rushing this along without
consulting (or at least not diplomatically working with) other EU member
states, including France, which likes to put its foot down, since Germany is
the big rival (and now that the UK is gone, the only real rival on the
European stage).

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chestermacwerth
It turns out that Germany has been adversarial toward the US throughout its
history. This"German call for European unity against the US" is almost
identical to their opposition in the Spanish-American War.

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secondo
When tariffs are used as a mechanism to create unfair advantages for US
entities over foreign states’ instead of even pretending it’s under the veil
of US freedom policy not even your old pals will put up with it.

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HershelBronev
sorry, I'm new in this social

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HershelBronev
I wanna know more about

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jokoon
Sometimes I wonder if the US and the EU are really friendly to each other.

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hackeraccount
Probably path dependence as much as anything else.

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syshum
Germany's influence over the EU is one of the reasons Brexit Happened, and
will likely lead to more nations leaving the EU

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theredbox
We need the US to step in for Eastern Europe. We need a reliable partner that
is at least very direct and honest about its interests unlike Germany that is
all about german interests while preaching european unity and values.
Seriously Germany has been destroying my part of Europe for way too long! No
more!

I would rather deal with the american way of life than being forced to live
the german way.

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Giorgi
Germany sounds like corrupted shithole digging deep into Russians ass

