This article is co-written by Ahmed Ashfaque Shahbaz and Khalid Ibn Muneer.

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has made an official state visit to Germany to meet his counterpart Chancellor Angela Merkel in August. The primary objective of the visit was to discuss bilateral issues between Russia and Germany focusing on the Nord Stream 2 pipelines. This came in an interesting time, as the Americans have been distancing itself from Germany a key ally in Europe. The current American administration has attempted to isolate Russia from Europe as a large amount of its natural gas exports end up in Europe primarily in Germany. One of the prime reasons for the USA to attempt the Germans to distance from the Russians is an American interest to export the LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) into Europe. However, natural gas is far less expensive than LPG. Hence, the Germans would prefer…