Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is calling upon Congress to make the sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project permanent, Fox News reports. 

Cruz is the senator who originally authored a piece of legislation that sanctioned the pipeline project. That legislation, which garnered bipartisan support, was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump.

Upon becoming president, Joe Biden, however, withdrew these sanctions until this week when he reinstated them following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Cruz now wants to make the sanctions against the project permanent stopping Biden from having the ability to withdraw them again in the future.

“The Biden White House surrendered”

Cruz explained in an interview with Fox News on Thursday evening why it is that he believes the sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 project ought to be made permanent by Congress. And, it has to do with why Cruz believes that Russia invaded Ukraine.

Cruz argued that “the reason that Russia is invading Ukraine right now is because of repeated mistakes made by the Biden White House.” One of those mistakes, according to Cruz, is Biden’s botched withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which Cruz said projected “weakness to every enemy of America” and “emboldened our enemies.”

Cruz, however, added that “the specific reason we saw Ukraine invaded is because the Biden White House surrendered on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.” And, this is why he believes that the sanctions against the project ought to be made permanent.

Cruz said, “it’s the only thing that has any real potential of stopping this invasion of Ukraine.”

Background

Nord Stream 2 AG, the company carrying out the pipeline project, is a Switzerland-based firm whose parent company is Gazprom, a large Russian gas company. The pipeline is supposed to run from Russia to Germany.

Cruz explained, “Nord Stream 2 is the pipeline that Putin was building to get his energy straight to Europe without having to go through Ukraine. And the reason he wants the pipeline is so that he doesn’t need Ukrainian pipelines to get his gas to market.”

It’s a highly controversial project, and equally controversial was Biden’s decision to withdraw sanctions against the company. White House press secretary Jen Psaki claimed on Wednesday that the Biden administration “never supported” the pipeline project.

What the White House has not explained, however, is why it is that it removed the sanctions if Psaki’s claim is true. Cruz is not alone in arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine likely would not have happened if Biden had never withdrawn these sanctions.