President Joe Biden further escalated his war of words with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, threatening to shut down his Nord Stream 2 pipeline project if he invaded Ukraine.
“If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said at a press conference on Monday. “We will bring an end to it.”
The president spoke about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline at a White House press conference on Monday with German Chancellor H.E. Scholz.
Biden repeated his threat despite some skepticism from the German media at the press conference.
“I promise you, we’ll be able to do that,” Biden said, adding that, “the notion that Nord Stream 2 would go forward with an invasion by the Russias is not just going to happen.”
Biden’s threat to the pipeline counters his earlier openness to the idea, even though it threatened to bypass Ukraine entirely to offer natural gas directly to Europe.
Biden’s State Department waived former President Donald Trump’s sanctions on the project in May 2021, as Secretary of State Tony Blinken called it an important step to “rebuild relationships with our allies and partners in Europe.”
Biden himself called sanctions to block the pipeline as “counterproductive” in May.
“To go ahead and impose sanctions now would, I think, be counterproductive in terms of our European relations,” Biden said. “They know how strongly I feel.”
He argued he was unable to block the pipeline even if he wanted to.
“It’s almost completely finished … it’s not like I can allow Germany to do something or not,” Biden said, explaining why he was willing to lift sanctions.
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