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President Donald Trump rightfully blasted Joe Biden and the Democrats for empowering Russia by greenlighting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Beginning in 2014, Obama sat back as Russian-rebels, with support from Russian troops, seized control of Crimea, a region belonging to Ukraine. Obama notoriously mocked Mitt Romney for expressing concerns that Russia poses a serious threat to the U.S.
President Donald Trump took matters into his own hands against Russia. Trump signed legislation into law following a bipartisan effort of the House Armed Services Committee to recommend imposing sanctions on Russia.
In 2019, Congress passed a measure to impose sanctions on a Russian company that is building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.
“There was never anybody tougher on Russia than I was,” Trump explained. “I was the one that ended Nord Stream. There was never anybody even close. I mean, Nord Stream 2 was the biggest thing. Nobody ever even heard of it until I came along and complained. And then I shut it down.”
This look back at what happened is accurate. When Trump signed the sanctions into law years ago, his reasoning was that the pipeline “really makes Germany a hostage of Russia if things ever happened that were bad.” Trump wanted to contain the Russians.
The pipeline was widely viewed as a way to empower Russia to overrun Europe. Polish President Andrzej Duda told Trump that he fiercely opposed Nord Stream 2. At the time, the head of Naftogaz, a Ukrainian energy company, called the pipeline Russia’s most “dangerous geopolitical project.”
Maintaining Trump’s sanctions should have been an easy call for President Biden, but he made the disastrous decision to waive those bipartisan sanctions and allowed Nord Stream to move forward.”
Some people believe that Joe Biden simply reversed an important accomplishment of the Trump administration for spite. Howerver, a more sinister theory is that his son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, which held a major interest in the pipeline.
“Biden had, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest,” South Dakota Governor Noem wrote in an opinion piece on Fox News. Hunter also received a damning $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow, according to a Congressional report.
Trump blasted the corrupt Bidens over this move. “There was never anything so big that happened to Russia than shutting down Nord Stream 2. And then Biden came in and he opened it up almost immediately. I couldn’t believe it. And now we are where we are.”
“It’s a disgrace,” Trump continued. “The other thing we are, and we’re just a little while ago, energy independent. We were producing more energy by far than Russia or Saudi Arabia.”
“We were going to be double the size of both in a very short period of time, probably within 12 months. But we were energy independent for the first time in more than 72 years,” Trump said. “And that was a killer for Russia because we brought the price of energy down. We were down at $30 a barrel, $32 a barrel, $40 a barrel. And actually much less than that for a period of time.”
“And nobody had ever seen anything. And that was certainly tough for Russia and other countries because they had to go out and they had to compete with those prices. And now they’re making a fortune with what’s going on, and we’re buying energy from Russia.”
Trump added that he believes the Chinese Communist Party will “be making a move soon” against Taiwan.
“China is going to make a move — and a very strong move — on Taiwan,” Trump said. “I would say sooner rather than later. Now the Olympics — I would say after the Olympics — now that the Olympics is over, they see what fools we made of ourselves in getting out of Afghanistan and the way they got out. I got it down to 2,000 soldiers and the rest was easy.”
“There’s never been anything so mishandled, so bungled, so incompetent. I think actually a big reason why the problem you have with Ukraine — I think when Putin and when Xi and when Kim Jong-un and when the Iranians are watching that, the Iranian leaders, I think they saw what happened in Afghanistan — and I think that gave them a new sense of power and dignity.”
