Keystone Pipeline
Photo via PBS

The Keystone pipeline is back on after Donald Trump‘s directive back in January to restart the project that was originally stopped by the Obama administration.  That directive seemed to have had a caveat attached to it that it’s going to get started so long as American steel is used in its construction. Those seemed to have been the pretty clear provisions set by President Trump on multiple occasions such as when the executive order was signed, during the address to a joint session of congress last week and during his speech to CPAC.

“This took place while I was getting ready to sign,” he told the CPAC conference last week. “I said, ‘Who makes the pipes for the pipeline?’ Well, sir, it comes from all over the world, isn’t that wonderful? I said, ‘Nope, it comes from the United States or we’re not building one.’ American steel. If they want a pipeline in the United States, they’re going to use pipe that’s made in the United States, do we agree?”

However it doesn’t seem like that “America First” mantra that Trump has been toting since the election will reign true here. Late last week, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that since construction of the pipeline has already commenced, they couldn’t ‘go back’ on the steel that was already created.

“The way that the Executive Order is written is actually … specific to new pipelines or those that are being repaired,” the spokeswoman said. “Since [Keystone] is already currently under construction … it was hard to go back. Everything moving forward would be all under that executive order.”

Hmm… interesting. So where’s that steel going to come from then?

According to TransCanada last Friday, purchase agreements had already been put in place directing that half of the steel would come from an Arkansas plant of India-based steelmaker, Welspun. Okay well, I guess at the very least some American workers will be churning out the steel for this potential environmental disaster.

But what about the rest of the 50-percent?

10-percent will reportedly come from the Welspun plant and India with the rest apparently being imported from Canada and Italy.

Okay well what about those companies in Canada and Italy? Who owns them?

Not much is known about the Italian contributions but the ‘Canadian’ imports raises some eyebrows.

The website DeSmogBlog.com has uncovered documents via Cornell University that 40-percent of the steel manufactured so far was made in Canada by a subsidiary of a Russian based company. That Russian based company is reportedly Evraz which is 31-percent owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich who is apparently tied to Vladimir Putin and the Trump family.

DeSmog has uncovered that 40 percent of the steel created so far was manufactured in Canada by a subsidiary of Evraz, a company 31-percent owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who is a close ally of Putin and a Trump family friend. Evraz has also actively lobbied against provisions which would mandate that Keystone XL‘s steel be made in the U.S.

However Abramovich’s ties to Putin run pretty deep.

The Russian oligarch was instrumental in helping launch Putin’s rise to power in Russia as well as vetting and picking his cabinet according to the book Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere by British journalists Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins. Additionally the book also proclaims Abramovich had a hand in creating Putin’s political party Unity.

As far as the ties to the Trump family go, Abramovich’s wife Dasha Zhukova has been a well document friend of Trump’s daughter and White House associate Ivanka Trump. In fact they’re so close Jake Sherman of Politico tweeted the day prior to Trump’s inauguration that Zhukova was in town to attend the event after receiving an invitation from Ivanka herself.

Ivanka Trump and Zhukova also attended the U.S. Open tennis tournament together in September of last year.

Via the Daily Mail: “The gang’s all here: Ivanka Trump and husband Jared attended the US Open on Sunday (clockwise from top left: Michael Kives, Wendi Deng, guest, John Hess, Princess Beatrice, Karlie Kloss, Dasha Zhukova, David Geffen, Michael Hess, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner)”
Photo via David Geffen/Instagram

Anyways, lets just keep connecting those Russian dots… At the expense of more lies and falsehoods to the American people.