{"id":319278,"date":"2017-07-28T18:06:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-28T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/collateral-damage-u-s-sanctions-aimed-at-russia-strike-western-european-allies\/"},"modified":"2017-07-28T18:06:09","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T17:06:09","slug":"collateral-damage-u-s-sanctions-aimed-at-russia-strike-western-european-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/collateral-damage-u-s-sanctions-aimed-at-russia-strike-western-european-allies\/","title":{"rendered":"Collateral Damage:  U.S. Sanctions Aimed at Russia Strike Western European Allies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>Do they know what they are doing?\u00a0 When the U.S. Congress adopts draconian sanctions aimed mainly at disempowering President Trump and ruling out any move to improve relations with Russia, do they realize that the measures amount to a declaration of economic war against their dear European \u201cfriends\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Whether they know or not, they obviously don\u2019t care.\u00a0 U.S. politicians view the rest of the world as America\u2019s hinterland, to be exploited, abused and ignored with impunity.<\/p>\n<p>The Bill H.R. 3364 \u201cCountering America\u2019s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act\u201d was adopted on July 25 by all but three members of the House of Representatives.\u00a0 An earlier version was adopted by all but two Senators. Final passage at veto-overturning proportions is a certainty.<\/p>\n<p>This congressional temper tantrum flails in all directions. The main casualties are likely to be America\u2019s dear beloved European allies, notably Germany and France.\u00a0 Who also sometimes happen to be competitors, but such crass considerations don\u2019t matter in the sacred halls of the U.S. Congress, totally devoted to upholding universal morality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Economic \u201cSoft Power\u201d Hits Hard<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Under U.S. sanctions, any EU nation doing business with Russia may find itself in deep trouble.\u00a0 In particular, the latest bill targets companies involved in financing Nord Stream 2, a pipeline designed to provide Germany with much needed natural gas from Russia.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, just to help out, American companies will gladly sell their own&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2017\/07\/28\/collateral-damage-u-s-sanctions-aimed-at-russia-strike-western-european-allies\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do they know what they are doing?\u00a0 When the U.S. Congress adopts draconian sanctions aimed mainly at disempowering President Trump and ruling out any move to improve relations with Russia, do they realize that the measures amount to a declaration of economic war against their dear European \u201cfriends\u201d? Whether they know or not, they obviously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-319278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}