The US administration is considering the possibility of using unilateral sanctions against participants of the Nord Stream 2 project, though it admits that the participating countries are free to build the pipeline, President Donald Trump told reporters during the talks with the Polish leader Andrzej Duda on Wednesday.
Asked whether the US plans to impose restrictions against the participants of the Nord Stream 2 project, Trump said that Washington is considering the option. The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) adopted in the US in 2017 stipulates such restrictions. Meanwhile, US President noted that the participants simply play for their own hand without any violations.
Trump also criticized Germany for the decision to participate in the construction of the pipeline.
Meanwhile, the US president emphasized that he expects the relationship between Moscow and Washington to improve.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is expected to come into service at the end of 2019. The pipeline is set to run from the Russian coast along the Baltic Sea bed to the German shore. It will go through the exclusive economic zones and territorial waters of five countries – Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, thus bypassing transit countries of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and other Eastern European and Baltic states. Each of the pipeline’s two stretches will have a capacity of 27.5 bln cubic meters. The total cost of the project has been estimated at 9.5 bln euro.