Opponents of the German-Russian Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2 have for the time being failed in the US Congress with a push for stricter sanction laws.

They did not succeed in getting a corresponding amendment to the law to be included in the legislative package on the defense budget (NDAA).

After the House of Representatives, the Senate also passed the NDAA on Wednesday without the corresponding addition to Nord Stream 2.

With the change, US President Joe Biden should be deprived of the opportunity to arbitrarily issue exceptions to American sanctions due to Nord Stream 2 for reasons of national security.

Also Biden actually against Pipeline

Nord Stream 2 is supposed to bring gas from Russia to Germany bypassing Ukraine.

The line is completed but not yet operational.

Biden is also against Nord Stream 2. Nevertheless, the Democrat had issued special permits (“Presidential Waiver”) in May, with which Nord Stream 2 AG, based in Switzerland and its German managing director, were spared US sanctions.

This waiver was expressly made out of consideration for the ally Germany.

In order to defuse the dispute with the United States over the pipeline, Germany made a joint statement in July that it would give Ukraine more support.

In view of a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, the new federal government has already come under pressure from the USA because of Nord Stream 2.

Republicans in the Senate in particular are trying to prevent the pipeline from going into operation.

"I will continue to work to stop NS2 and the threat it poses to Ukrainian and transatlantic security," said senior Republican Senator on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Jim Risch, after Wednesday's vote.

If the opponents had prevailed with their latest sanction plans, this would also have strained German-American relations.

The White House had advocated that the tightening of the sanctions laws not be included in the NDAA.

The US news site "Axios" reported at the end of last month, citing confidential documents from the German embassy in Washington, that the German government had warned Congress of sanctions in connection with Nord Stream 2 - these would represent a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.