President Joe Biden on Tuesday defended his administration’s decision to lift sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would carry natural gas from Russia to Germany and Europe. The president said that although he opposed the project from the beginning, the pipeline is now nearly finished. “To go ahead and impose sanctions now would, I think, be counterproductive in terms of our European relations. They know how strongly I feel,” Biden told reporters outside the White House. In late 2019, Congress and the Trump administration sanctioned a number of entities tied to the construction of the $10.5 billion pipeline. The sanctions were part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which stated the goal was to “minimize the ability” of Russia to use Nord Stream 2 “as a tool of coercion and political leverage” and to stop Russia from shifting energy exports from Ukraine to other countries. Russia vowed to continue …