Too late for a Saudi rethink? Critics say oil cut was a predictable blow for Biden
President Joe Biden’s attempts to court Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were destined to end in failure, analysts and dissidents told NBC News, after the White House and the deeply conservative kingdom clashed over cuts to oil production.
Without elaborating, the White House warned there would be “consequences’’ for the Middle Eastern powerbroker after the oil-producing alliance OPEC+ announced earlier this month that it would cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, a move that’s likely to send gas prices higher again.
The cut is also seen as helping Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter, finance its war in Ukraine.
And for some, the decision by the group of 13 oil exporting countries, whose de facto leader is Saudi Arabia, was a sign that Biden’s bid to reset ties between Washington and Riyadh during a visit to the kingdom earlier this year was doomed to fail.
“It failed both on blood and on oil,” Dr. Khalid Aljabri, a Saudi rights activist, told NBC News Thursday by telephone.
Aljabri, who works as a cardiologist in Washington, D.C., added that bin Salman had “zero incentive to change his behavior.”
As a presidential candidate, Biden made no bones about his stance on the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Shortly after announcing his candidacy, he declared he was going to “cancel the blank check” the Trump administration had given Saudi Arabia during its war in Yemen, in which thousands of people have lost their lives.
He also vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” state in the wake of the brutal killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA has said was likely ordered by the crown prince.
Bin Salman has long denied any knowledge or involvement in the killing of the journalist, one of his most prominent critics, which was carried out inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by agents who worked for him. A U.S. intelligence report that Biden declassified after coming to office said Khashoggi’s killing could not have happened without the crown prince’s knowledge.
In July, despite the criticism and with the war raging in Ukraine, Biden visited the kingdom, which is a vital American ally and one of the largest oil producers in the world.
Biden, who promised ahead of his visit that he would bring up the kingdom’s rights record, famously fist-bumped the crown prince, who is Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, and held meetings with him and other senior figures.
For Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi human rights activist, it was clear that the president would not “be getting anything out of this visit” at the time.
Al-Hathloul, whose sister Loujain al-Hathloul was imprisoned after making global headlines for campaigning for women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia, said they had warned that Biden’s visit would empower bin Salman and that had proven to be the case.
