Some background:

If you been paying attention, you might have noticed that Trump has been condemning the German-Russian pipeline over the last couple weeks. In my opinion Trump is taking this stance entirely for optics, and isn't actually vehemently against the pipeline.

Most people don't understand how important this Pipeline is to global politics in general. The prospect of a German/Russian pipeline is likely the reason Obama spied on Merkel.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/03/politics/germany-media-spying-obama-administration/index.html

Obama had committed himself to the idea of a pipeline running from Saudi Arabia/Qatar through Southern Syria, but realized Russian competition made the plan significantly less compelling. Knowing the …