The new Foreign Minister is just finding out how little transatlantic oaths can be worth when you are in a coalition with the SPD.
Baerbock recently tried to create the impression in Washington that no paper would fit between Berlin and the allies when it comes to dealing with a possible new Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On the controversial issue of Nord Stream 2, where the German position has long led to suspicion and incomprehension among the partners, the SPD general secretary has now openly given insight into a way of thinking that is likely to be widespread in the Chancellor's party. You have to "leave such conflicts behind", says Kühnert, giving the gas pipeline a guarantee of existence that is not even covered by the agreements that Germany entered into with America before the current crisis.
Kühnert has so far not attracted attention as a foreign politician, but it should also be clear to him that it is no strengthening of the Western negotiating position to signal to the Russians at the very beginning of the current round of talks that the gas business has nothing to do with their behavior towards Ukraine.
Since Scholz has already taken Nord Stream 2 out of the geopolitical game as an allegedly purely private-sector project, Putin can concentrate entirely on the “military-technical” questions to which he likes to devote himself so much.