A letter sent by three US senators warning the owner of a port on the Baltic Sea of “crushing legal and economic sanctions” if it continued to provide “significant goods, services, and support” for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has caused outrage in Germany.
Republican lawmakers Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Ron Johnson sent the letter to F?hrhafen Sassnitz GmbH, the operator of Mukran Port, on August 5. In the letter, they drew attention to the “broad array of US sanctions and guidance targeting the Nord Stream 2 project”.
The move pitched the municipality of Sassnitz, which owns 90 per cent of the company, into the middle of the intensifying transatlantic struggle over the pipeline, owned by the Russian gas company Gazprom.