Rep. Mike Waltz, R- Fla., told Newsmax Monday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine gave Europe a "wake-up call," and is making them stop taking the United States and NATO protections for granted.
"I think we've had a real wakeup call across Europe, who has taken their security for granted, and taken America for granted in terms of providing that security, but we'll see if it holds over time," Waltz said during "Stinchfield" Monday.
"A silver lining in all of this is that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has scared the pants off the Europeans, and maybe scared some sense into them. Germany is finally saying they're going to live up to their defense budget commitments. They totally reversed on moving away from nuclear [energy]. They're now going to put natural gas terminals in so that they can receive American liquefied national natural gas."
Waltz said that Germany is now supporting providing lethal aid to Ukraine to help them fight the Russians whereas a few weeks ago, they were blocking that type of aid.
He said that despite the "severe" sanctions put in place by the administration of President Joe Biden, the United States has doubled the amount of Russian oil imported in the last year, and that the imposed sanctions include "carve outs" for Russian energy sales to the U.S. and Europe.
"[The sanctions] still have carve outs for Russian oil and gas because here's what Putin knows. He knows Europe's addicted [to Russian energy], number one, and he knows that Biden won't replace Russian oil and gas with American oil and gas," Waltz said. "Because he's beholden to the progressives."
He also said that while those on the left call for the United States to cut fossil fuel production, and allow importing it from Russia, that country produces "dirtier" natural gas, with more pollution.
"The environmental argument doesn't hold up because Russian gas is actually dirtier than American gas," he said. "In fact, that is some of the dirtiest gas in the world, and you're actually polluting more."
By looking to more green alternatives, Waltz said the raw materials for solar panels and wind turbines are manufactured in China with some of the most environmentally dirty plants, some of which using "slave" labor.
"The big thing is that the raw materials for the solar panels, for the wind turbines, for the batteries, the storage lithium, cobalt, and graphite, they're all controlled and owned by China, which has some of the dirtiest forms of mining in the world," he said. "And oh, by the way, they do it with modern day slave labor."
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