Germany mum on letter offering gas aid if US drops sanctions

BERLIN (AP) — The German government refused Wednesday to comment on a leaked letter indicating that it offered to help facilitate the import of U.S. liquefied natural gas if Washington dropped the threat of sanctions over a new subsea pipeline from Russia.

Germany's finance minister allegedly wrote a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in August saying the German government was "willing to considerably increase its financial support for LNG infrastructure and import capacities by up to 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion)" if, in return, the United States “allows the unhindered construction and operation of Nord Stream 2.”

The letter was published this week by the group Environmental Action Germany and matches reports by Germany weekly Die Zeit last September that Berlin was seeking to fend off U.S. opposition to the pipeline by offering to boost imports of U.S. gas.

A German government spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter, saying any correspondence on the issue was confidential.

“The federal government is in contact with the U.S. government about the U.S. sanctions and the threat of sanctions relating to Nord Stream 2,” spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer told reporters in Berlin.

Demmer added, however, that the government had “acted in a coordinated way" over the issue in the past — suggesting that other ministries and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been involved in the discussion.

The leak of the alleged letter is an embarrassment for Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who is running to succeed Merkel in September's national election. Scholz's party, the center-left Social Democrats, have been outspoken in their support for Nord Stream 2 even as some other parties have edged away from the project in light of Germany's strained ties with Russia over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the alleged...