U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan spoke on the Senate floor on Friday about the president’s trip to Europe, pointing out some inconvenient truths for German critics of the U.S. president:
“The President also highlighted a big national security issue that is in Europe that doesn’t get a lot of attention, but that should get a lot of attention, and that is the issue of energy, particularly natural gas and how Russia feeds a lot of Europe–particularly, in this case, Germany. That undermines energy security and national security in Europe and in NATO. It is a controversial topic. A lot of countries in Europe don’t like the fact that Germany is spending so much to import Russian gas when NATO is actually focused on defending Europe against Russia. I think the President also did a good job highlighting this issue and how we need to focus on this.
“We are seeing some Europeans protesting the visit of our President, but I will state this–and you don’t read about this a lot: There has been no Western leader who has done more to undermine Western interests and Western national security and European energy security than the former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroeder. He was the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and when he left office, what did he do? He immediately went to work for Gazprom and Vladimir Putin to sell natural gas to European countries, including his own government and his own country, Germany.
“To me, that represents a remarkable betrayal of Western values, NATO security, and European energy security. It doesn’t get highlighted, but, for our German friends–and they are our good, close allies–it is one thing to protest our President, but take a look at your former Chancellor. He is doing more damage to the national security of Europe and the energy security of Germany and our allies than probably anybody else in Europe.”