this is it every news line from berlin the u.s. attempts a global reset secretary of state anthony blank is in europe is 1st official visit since the biden administration says charge he set to speak after meeting nato allies but he still has some tough words for germany also coming up the main jacoba germany's chancellor apologizes and backtracks own words easter lockdown plans on

the america overturns a decision to send the country into a 5 day call number has been going to shut down she now says the plans were quote instant but they're still no it's a new strategy and it is again a political deadlock in israel the latest election and delivers in a decisive results a long serving prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his victory he doesn't appear to have enough to see the suits to form a coalition. thank you so much for your company everyone well it is a speech expected some market a major shift in u.s. policy secretary of state anthony blinken hopes to revitalize u.s. ties with its nato allies he is about address any moment now a summit of the nato foreign ministers in brussels transcripts of mr blinken

supplants speech suggests that he'll address some of the most of vice of issues facing the transatlantic alliance he'll tell nato member. as if it's expected that the united states sees china as a threat to collective security but he won't force them to choose between beijing and washington and also talk about strained ties with russia and concerns about the planned north stream gas pipeline between germany and russia but lincoln will stress a multilateral approach in contrast with the more combative tone of the previous trump administration. and of course so we'll go live as soon as that speech gets underway but until then i'd like to welcome my colleague william at glu croft to talk about this very momentous day because it's a reset of some sort it's an official reset of statements of words of tone that we've been hearing now certainly since biden entered office in january and even

before that the promises he said he was going to be making when he became finally became president and i think we can expect a lot of what we've already heard in news conferences with as they blink in today and yesterday at 8 o headquarters where he talks a lot about resetting relations america coming back to the table being welcome back to the table seem very appreciative that european allies nato allies are are happy to have america back and finding a way to to you know bridge many of these differences that erupted over the last several years that should be noted those differences didn't start in the last several years under the previous u.s. administration but really came to the forefront and and blink in talking about how you know using nato as a mechanism as a tool for the alliance to go forward on things they agree on and also as a platform with which they can exchange disagree exchange ideas over disagreements about but still it has to be said that in terms of foreign policy i mean this administration has hit the ground running and it's quite combative i have to say i mean there is a slight difference with the trump administration but not much it's

a very very good point and it can't be said enough the actual policy goals really haven't changed. much especially in regards to china in regards to russia in regards to nuclear weapon sharing which is a very controversial idea especially here in germany u.s. nuclear weapons on german air force planes and german pilots theoretically flying those planes very hot political topic here in germany the 2 percent budget rule about getting nato allies to put more defense spent more money into their defense budgets that is probably not going to change that started under the obama administration in 2014 when joe biden was of course vice president the biggest change here is tone under the trump administration we saw donald trump and his secretary of state's sectors of state and other officials bullying their european allies threatening them telling them they're going to cut off if they didn't do x. y. and z. here you see a shift in the tone saying look we have this disagreement but how can we work

together to make it palatable to your you know your domestic politics just here in germany making it possible for us to find agreement on the things that they disagree on have pointless talk about china because i mean that is now emerging for this administration by mr bush as the hostile power that they have to deal with and europe just signed just a couple of months ago that deal that risks now being duran held so you know how are they going to resolve that right in terms of you have that investment deal in general that even though joe biden wasn't president yet they kind of made statements saying please hold off on this until we are in office and we can coordinate something together you did this week see joint sanctions between the u.s. of the e.u. australia canada against the chinese officials for human rights violations you saw this coordinated taking of action the sanctions and of course china responding in kind but there is a big difference remember the u.s. has strategic and military interests in the pacific region that the e.u.

does not but nato does not nato was not designed to look that far to that side of the world it was very much of a european sphere of influence a lot. and so we just heard it today in today's press conference with the secretary general of nato he was directly asked how does nato view china she doesn't he says that nato does not view china in the same kind of strategic threat way that the u.s. does so there's disagreement on that 5 g. is a big issue that was something big on of the trump administration so there are many disagreements and we should also of these disagreements are not new in that china is not suddenly a new superpower these have been questions the rise of china has been a question going on for at least 2 decades if not more that nato the u.s. and more broadly speaking europe are now dealing with let's talk russia is is that that's another power that is viewed by the biden administration as a hostile act or can they found common ground with nato on that issue or here it breaks out to be even more complicated because you have members in nato and within

the european union and remember these are 2 separate organizations but there's a lot of overlap that are on america's side that want tougher action against russia that want sanctions that want to kill the north stream to pipeline you have the baltic states of eastern european states that really feel a direct threat from russia and they they look to the united states for a defense for security guarantees then you have of course the big elephant in the room here we are in germany where it which stands to benefit commercially from this pipeline. and so you you have multiple moving parts it's not just us and it's european nato while allies it really breaks down into different groups of where they stand let's focus on the north stream controversy because that of course is very relevant to where we are going now germany because i get a sense that in germany it's seen as it's a commercial project but the way that secretary of state lincoln and the by an administration for frames that this is for them a geo political issue to discuss a little bit that that that that that difference you know

a policy experts are telling me is the disconnect between how germany views the pipeline and even less. set aside the u.s. for a 2nd how russia views the pipeline you are correct germany sees this and i'm going to michael is on the record multiple times saying this as is her government and many of her officials this is a purely commercial business project is not to do with politics and we need to keep all of these issues separate human rights no vallone meddling in eastern europe and the like separate from commercial deals russia views this as a commercial deal but also it sees geo political leverage in this and when you have one side seeing it as purely commercial and one side seeing us as a geo political tool you're going to have ultimately an inability to come to terms with how to address this this project what to do with it then you bring in the u.s. the u.s. of course also sees this as a geo political tool sees it as a threat to ukraine to poland to other places where russia flows dass through other pipelines member north from 2 there is a nordstrom one there's also many other overland pipelines that send natural gas

from russia to germany so the u.s. sees this as a as an energy threat it's also becoming increasingly a climate threat and you have more and more voices here in germany as well and especially the green party which we should talk about that about the the election this year in germany and the influence of the greens have pushing this climate aspect it's not just your political instead of there's also climate that it violates germany's promises on climate that natural gas is not at all the sort of climate friendly or more carbon neutral energy that it's often marketed as and that all of these aspects need to kind of come together to figure out what to do with north stream to pipeline which we should note is more than 90 percent 95 percent finished and obviously you know state secretary blinken as he like and yes they singled out germany i thought that was quite striking i mean they are not backing down no neither side is really backing down and they blink in met with high chrome os germany's foreign minister today the german side very interestingly didn't make

a big mention publicly about nordstrom to coming up in the conversation where is the u.s. state department did really. a statement specifically noted nordstrom to reminding the german side of america specifically joe biden's very strong disagreement that joe biden's constant quote is it's a bad deal for germany. so that just that that difference in statement was very interesting and yes the u.s. is not going to back down but it's a sticky situation because it also would be a bad look for the u.s. although it has the legal mechanisms to do so to start sanctioning allies specifically german companies german officials like it does with russian companies and russian officials is a totally different ball game about those sanctions are there what looks like it might be a big a pretty particular way to handle this is the pipeline can be finished but then there's a question of certification and u.s. sanctions at the moment also target also target certification you know there are

international standards that projects have to be have to meet to even allowed to be to operate and if you might be able to finish the pipeline physically finish the structure but if they can't get that certification because a certification companies are at risk of being sanctioned by the u.s. it's a no this is a nonstarter frog frog ok stick around a little bit deeper into this issue because as we just discussed with william on the agenda high up on the agenda is the contentious north stream 2 pipeline between russia and germany and ahead of the meeting mr blinken had mentioned as well you just reported that the united states is not happy with it let's take a look at our report that we have for you. the north stream 2 project has been under fire from the us right from the starting 2018 the americans fear the pipeline which is intended to transport 55000000000 cubic meters of natural gas annually to

make germany too dependent on russian energy supplies another concern is ukraine as the pipeline goes directly from the russian port of vyborg under the baltic sea to the german coast it would bypass ukraine and poland both western allies and deprive them of valuable transit fees us opposition to russian gas in western europe is nothing new in 1983 the 1st gas shipments from the former soviet union arrived in west germany it was at the height of the oil crisis and the americans were furious since then the u.s.s.r. and later russia have worked hard to step up energy supplies to germany there have been plenty of political conflicts between the 2 countries over the years like when the soviet army marched into afghanistan in 1979 to rescue a cheeky communist regime when vladimir putin next year cranes crimean peninsula in 2014. but so far germany has always endeavored to separate politics from its

economic interests when it comes to russia that could now change after the u.s. is hard stance on north stream to pressure is mounting on chancellor angela merkel to drop the 10000000000 euro project shortly before the finish line. to be continued with me here is my colleague william croft and we will go to that all important a press conference a by the secretary and the like and as soon as it gets underway in the meantime i want to want to talk about a better understanding whether that was really is at the top of the agenda nato so many interests are involved there the u.s. is supposed to draw. down troops by what may 1st the 1st is the current line doable is that going to happen are they going to miss the deadline what does it all mean for nato well this may 1st deadline came up in all of the news conferences at this nato summit these last 2 days reporters were pushing both and the blinken on this

may 1st question they've been of course very vague saying you know this is behind closed doors this has been very important discussions they've been having that blinken said that the alliances they're allied partners perspectives on this will now inform joe biden and the u.s. decision on how it's going forward to afghanistan but we don't have a lot of concrete information about exactly what the u.s. and more broadly nato plan is for leaving afghanistan because they have a lot of commitments there they of course have a commitment to leave a something of a stable democratic country behind that won't oppress or persecute its own people that won't become or be reconstituted as a base for terrorism that would be a threat to the united states and its nato partners or or others around the world and yet it also can't really stay so it's a bit of a rock and a hard place the taliban has been for a very long time now been sort of using violence as a means as

a negotiating tactic to push the u.s. and its allies for a better deal for getting out which leads to a lot of fear about what will happen if the u.s. and allies leave afghanistan it's a very sticky situation remember nato partners are only there because of article 5 that article 5 in the nato charter that says an attack on one is an attack on all and $911.00. 2001 was an attack on the united states and it was the 1st time that article 5 was invoked and that brought all these nato partners into afghanistan and now you have the u.s. saying we're out of here guys and they know saying way but we're here for you so what are we doing if you leave so it's not only an issue between the u.s. and afghanistan it's also an issue in the us. nato and then together nato and afghan assess a very very difficult situation and right now we're 20 years into this war at least with the u.s. and nato involved and there's no clear solution for how to end it and the secretary

of state was also quoted as saying they want to leave responsibly so i would leave responsibly and that's a that's an easy question to ask of.