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A Wall Street Journal report last week about the corrupt and heavy handed approach of The U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has caused a mini firestorm in the raging dumpster fire that is Europe.
The continent is currently dealing with a bond crisis, inflation taking off again, record diesel prices, threats from the US President to release its diesel reserves, more social spending cuts amid its militarization push, and gas shortages.
Oh, the EU did just manage to find 27 billion under the couch cushions to send Ukraine even as a government exodus from Kiev is looking more likely everyday. And the-Russians-are-coming hysteria is reaching new heights.
Amid all this, comes the news that Guilfoyle is throwing Mar-a-Lago muscle around. Here’s the segment from the WSJ that is getting the attention:
In March, at a dinner in Athens attended by Greek and U.S. officials, Guilfoyle got into an argument with Greece’s energy minister, Stavros Papastavrou, in front of the other guests. Referring to the impending collapse of the Romanian government, Guilfoyle told the group, “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here,” according to a person who attended the dinner and others who were told about it. The conversation became heated, with Papastavrou retorting that the U.S. couldn’t replace the government of Greece, which was elected by the people.
More surprising than the suggestion that the US can control its vassals is Papastavrou’s naivety. (Guilfoyle’s tactlessness is to be expected as it mirrors her boss—and almost-father-in-law.)
The US has since WWII worked to ensure governments friendly to American capital and opposed to communism (and later Russia) remain in power in Europe. Typically this control over Europe is done with odes to the “greatest alliance” and other nonsense. If we assume the obvious about Nord Stream, then a wonderful recent example is the smile and stab in the back from the Biden administration, and the Europeans loved it:
US President Joe Biden has been awarded Germany’s highest honor, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit at a ceremony in Berlin, on his farewell trip to Europe. pic.twitter.com/pNZOyos0e7
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) October 18, 2024
The Trump administration might be more brazen, but the goal is the same. And the undemocratic EU itself functions to enforce this line as well by checking national governments in a variety of ways.
For example, in the country Guilfoyle mentions that the US played a role in collapsing the government, the EU exerts control over Romania by demanding ongoing economic “reforms” to unlock vital European funding, as well as helping to overturn votes if candidates who don’t favor war with Russia are elected.
In December, Romania’s state-controlled natural gas producer rejected a proposal from a Greek-US company for a 20-year contract to import US LNG, as it would have meant losses of up to 300 million Euros per year. The Romanian government fell a few months later.
In August, Romania’s state-controlled gas transmission operator Transgaz signed a new memorandum of understanding with another American LNG exporter to potentially invest in a Louisiana export facility and bring more gas to Romania.
Oh, and last week Romania’s president ruled out early elections—despite a political and economic crisis—because foreign investors are scared that the “far right”, i.e., not Russophobic, might win.
Guilfoyle was simply reminding America’s Greek allies the same could happen to them if they don’t buy US liquified natural gas. Who can blame her?
The Greek government itself is eager to bring in American capital via Amazon surveillance, Microsoft data centers, and military hardware—as well as Israeli spyware. So what does it expect? American businesses and diplomats to look out for the interests of Greece?
The US has always worked to ensure foreign governments are receptive to American capital. The real scandal behind Guilfoyle’s threats is European elite subservience to the US in the face of its growing energy dominance and robbery of Europe. And as the reliance on US energy grows, it will only become easier for Washington to follow through with Guilfoyle’s threats.
‘Helping Ukraine’
The context of the WSJ piece is a familiar one: The Trump administration, just like previous ones, is demanding “allies” buy billions of dollars of American natural gas. As the WSJ puts it:
The former Fox News host has crisscrossed the Balkans to help Europe wean itself from Russian energy, via a “vertical gas corridor” meant to receive U.S. LNG in Greece and pipe it toward Ukraine.
The WSJ repeats the ludicrous propaganda that all this heavy handedness in Greece, the Balkans, and elsewhere in Europe is really about the noble cause of getting gas to Ukraine to keep the lights on.
It is nothing of the sort. It is about helping US energy companies profit by getting Europeans to pay exorbitant prices for gas. The amount of American LNG currently coming into Greece is hardly enough to meet Greece’s needs, let alone power Ukraine.
Greece imported roughly 1.5 bcm of American LNG over the first half of this year. To put that in perspective, Greece’s total consumption of gas in 2024 was about 6.6 bcm.
Greece is racing to expand its LNG import capacity, but it’s still at just over 12 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year.
The “save Ukraine” narrative helps mask that this is really about replacing gas from another Russian pipeline with the more expensive American option, a goal the US permanent state has been working on for years that spans administrations and predates Guilfoyle’s arrival as Greek-Balkans viceroy.
The TurkStream has a capacity of 31.5 bcm of natural gas a year, roughly half of which stays in Türkiye, and the rest continues on to the Balkans and Central Europe. Athens hopes to reach 33.5 bcm by 2030, but if we buy the line that this is all about Ukraine, it’s worth asking what will be left of the country at that point?
Just in case there isn’t a Ukraine to be “saved” Greece (and a Guilfoyle-connected American company) are lining up other buyers. As the WSJ notes:
In November, Aktor announced a joint venture, Atlantic-SEE LNG, that would be split 60-40 between it and DEPA, a Greek state-backed energy company. In the months since, Aktor and its joint venture have signed memorandums of understanding and commercial agreements with gas companies in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Romania. A $6 billion deal Guilfoyle helped Aktor secure in Albania would, if completed, have the country buy gas from the company through 2050.
Ukraine might not end up getting any of the gas; its state-owned gas company told the Journal negotiations aren’t taking place anymore for future purchases from Atlantic-SEE.
Greece’s rapid buildout of LNG capacity comes as the EU plans to get completely off Russian gas by the end of this year, and it’s working to end the funny business of labeling Russian gas as Turkish. The document states:
“The Regulation should therefore presume that natural gas imported into the Union (…) arriving via TurkStream (…) originates in or is exported, directly or indirectly, from the Russian Federation, thus replacing the requirement to submit proof of the country of production. In case it is claimed that natural gas arriving at these borders, interconnectors, or interconnection points is under a ‘transit’ procedure through the Russian Federation, strict controls should apply.”
Bizarrely, Athens is celebrating this provision, which was proposed by the Greek energy minister, aiming to “position Greece as a pivotal player in the Euro-American energy axis and reinforcing its ambition to become a regional energy hub.”
That quest to become an energy hub will come at the expense of Greeks and others in southeastern Europe. As the Greek Energy Press noted back in 2024:
LNG imports at the Revythoussa facility have remained subdued over the past few months as gas importers have shown a clear preference for more competitively priced Russian pipeline gas being rebranded as Turkish pipeline gas – to avoid sanctions imposed on Russia – and entering the Greek market via the country’s Sidirokastro gas entry point on the Greek-Bulgarian border.
The Journal—and likely Greek and European pols—have no problem with this arrangement that crushes European citizens and industry. They just don’t like Guilfoyle’s unrefined style.
According to the WSJ, Guilfoyle is not only demanding Balkan nations buy more US LNG, but that they hire a specific company to help deliver it: Aktor Group.
Frequently at Guilfoyle’s side in her Balkan dealings is Christos Marafatsos, a 39-year-old Greek-American who is a top lobbyist for Aktor, a gas business that is working in partnership with a Greek state-backed energy company to bring in American LNG. The WSJ notes that his ‘prior experience includes co-founding a Washington, D.C.-area produce distributor and working in businesses ranging from real-estate consulting to creating “the ultimate immersive experience” of the Acropolis in IMAX 3-D.’
Guilfoyle herself is a former prosecutor and Fox News host, as well as former wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
What the WSJ reporting makes clear—yet again— is that the bust out of Europe attracts all sorts of shady grifters. Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian gas company was a preview of what was to come for the rest of Europe.
While Greeks and others in the Balkans might complain about Guilfoyle and Marafatsos, that hasn’t stopped the “saving of Ukraine.”
Europe has no one else to blame but their own grifter leaders for having to take orders from Mar-a-Lago face who hocks products like Flor de Maga fragrances and 1776 Liberté champagne.
They could have had peace with Russia and vibrant economies. Instead they chased the easy money flowing in from across the Atlantic and sold their countries out. They chose war with a country that for decades bent over backwards in an effort to be accepted into the Western club. For various reasons multiple trans-Atlantic actors would never allow that, and instead pushed NATO eastwards, helped Ukraine arm for war, empowered anti-Russian Banderites that pursued the persecution and killing of Russians in eastern Ukraine, stationed Western spook sites and biolabs on their territory and considered deploying nuclear weapons there as well, ones that could reach Moscow in a matter of seconds.
Following the dawn of the second Trump administration the conventional wisdom was that the US was about to “abandon” Europe. We wrote at the time how unlikely that was due to the interests of American capital. Why would the US turn its back on such an easy mark?
Every increase in the anti-Russia hysteria means more money flowing across the Atlantic— for more weapons, more energy, and more power drunk viceroys like Guilfoyle dancing on the grave of European nations’ sovereignty.
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