Biden hosts German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Oval Office.

[elleng]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-biden-hosts-german-chancellor-angela-merkel-in-the-oval-office?

[NCjack]

1. So nice to have Angela Merkel back -- and not Putin.

[IcyPeas]

2. the Pipeline is a big issue

One sour note that preceded and outlasted the Donald Trump era of diplomatic discord has been a new pipeline taking natural gas from Russia to Germany.

The United States has long argued that the Nord Stream 2 project will threaten European energy security by increasing the continent’s reliance on Russian gas and allowing Russia to exert political pressure on vulnerable Eastern and Central European nations. But Biden recently waived sanctions against German entities involved in the project, a move that angered many in Congress.

Biden is expected to raise his concerns about the pipeline project with Merkel, but the White House was not anticipating any sort of formal announcement to come from their talks, according to a Biden administration official who briefed reporters before Merkel’s visit.

Merkel has tried to dampen expectations for an imminent breakthrough, but she probably will want to resolve the issue before leaving office. “It weighs on German-U.S. relations and German-EU relations,” Thimm said.