Sanctions on Russia Part of US Plan to Seek Global Energy Domination

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The House of Representatives approved the proposed new sanctions by 419 votes to three on Monday after the Senate had approved the measure by 98 votes to two: Both majorities ensured the bill could be repassed with easy two-thirds majorities if President Donald Trump sought to veto it.

"We are going to outdo Russia and Saudi Arabia in combined oil and natural gas production within two years. Now they want to push out the competition," Wall Street analyst Gerald Celente said.

The measure is an attempt to try and cripple Russia’s exports of oil and natural gas and to assert renewed US domination of the global energy markets for the first time in half a century, Celente explained on Wednesday.

The new sanctions legislation had the potential to dangerously exacerbate tensions and the risk of conflict between the United States and Russia and it has generated irrational and dangerous anti-Russian hatred in the United States, Celente cautioned.

Americans had to realize "how dangerous this is becoming. It is not only destroying relations with Russia, it is not only building the anti-Russia hysteria and it is not only suppressing oil and gas exploration in Russia: It really signals the strength of the hatred Congress has for Russia," he said.

However, none of the congressional supporters of the latest sanctions had bothered to consider what their impact would be on European nations allied to the United States, Celente remarked.

The sanctions legislation was not in the interests of the American people but had been pushed through owing to the domination of the US political system in Washington by wealthy special interests, Celente maintained.

Politicians in Congress who had claimed the new sanctions were meant to help US allies were being disingenuous, Celente asserted.

The latest sanctions had been sold to Congress on the spurious claim that Russia needed to be "punished" for supporting the legitimate government in Syria in the civil war in that country. But this claim was false too, Celente said.

"The sanctions legislation is another losing maneuver. The sanctions are targeting and punishing Russia for intervening in Syria. But Russia only intervened in Syria in 2015 at the legal request of the Assad government. By that time, more than 400,000 Syrians were [already] dead," he said.

The sanctions were bound to fail and backfire, doing great additional damage to US standing around the world, Celente said.