Joe Biden is out to recalibrate the relationship with Saudi Arabia. The decision, announced by the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, comes after Riyadh and the other OPEC capitals, including Moscow, announced a cut of two million barrels per day in oil production in order to to force a recovery in the price of crude oil.
The president of the United States already described the decision of the oil cartel as “disappointing” when the member countries adopted it. It was not surprising. Not because of its economic effect, but because of the position in which the production cut placed him after having traveled to Riyadh last July and meeting there with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, just to try to persuade him to do the opposite: increase the production so that prices would fall and thus alleviate the inflationary tensions derived from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On that visit, Biden had to swallow a huge toad. Well, he himself, in line with what was indicated by the US intelligence services, had pointed to the Arab prince as responsible for the murder of the rebellious journalist Jamal Khashoggi, perpetrated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. had passed, according to the US leader, to join the list of “pariah” countries in the world.
To temper the barrage of criticism that was falling on him in relation to the trip, Biden was pushed to repeat directly to Salman’s face, during the visit, the serious accusation of his involvement in the murder. He told him specifically, at least according to what he assured the press after meeting with the president in his palace in Jeddah, that he considered him “guilty of Khashoggi’s death.”
Kirby advanced the “re-evaluation” and “review” of the relationship with Saudi Arabia, furthermore, shortly after the influential head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Bob Menéndez, said that Washington must break its ties with Riyadh after verifying the Saudi “collaboration” with the Russian government.
“I must denounce the recent decision of the Saudi Arabian government to help support Putin’s war (in Ukraine, ndlr) through the Opec cartel,” Menendez said in a statement. And he added that, from his position, he will not give the green light to any US cooperation with the great oil power “until the Saudi kingdom reconsiders its position regarding the war in Ukraine.”
The powers of Congress when it comes to giving or not issuing certain resolutions on bilateral relations force Biden to listen to the Chambers. And this was also confirmed by Kirby in an interview with CNN on Tuesday: “The president is willing to work with Congress to think about what the relationship with Riyadh should be like in the future,” said the spokesman.
