\US President Joe Biden is reportedly re-evaluating relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia following the decision by the Saudi-led OPEC+. This comes as the group announced last week that it would be cutting oil production.
White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that Biden would be re-evaluating US-Saudi Arabia relations following OPEC+’s announcement. Kirby added that the US leader is also open to working with Congress on relations with Saudi Arabia moving forward.
“I think the president’s been very clear that this is a relationship that we need to continue to re-evaluate, that we need to revisit,” Kirby told CNN. “And certainly in light of the OPEC decision, I think that’s where he is.”
Kirby reiterated that Biden expressed disappointment in the OPEC+ decision and that Biden is “willing to work with Congress to think through what that relationship ought to look like going forward.”
“And I think he’s going to be willing to start to have those conversations right away. I don’t think this is anything that’s going to have to wait or should wait, quite frankly, for much longer,” said Kirby, adding that the issue not only concerns the ongoing war in Ukraine but is also a national security interest matter.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for a freeze on cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including most arms sales. Menendez accused Saudi Arabia of helping underwrite Russia’s war on Ukraine when OPEC+ announced that it would be cutting oil production.
Experts told The Intercept, according to the outlet’s Ken Klippenstein, the move by Saudi Arabia to cut oil production was not just geopolitical in motivation but was also an effort to influence the country’s political sphere, most especially undermine the Democratic Party.
Brookings Institution senior fellow Bruce Riedel said Saudi Arabia is trying to get Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump to win another term in office while also returning power to the Republican Party under Trump’s MAGA movement in the upcoming midterms in November. Klippenstein cited the affinity the kingdom’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, has for the former president.