After he announced last week that the White House was re-evaluating its relationship with Saudi Arabia, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that President Joe Biden has no plans to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the upcoming G20 summit in Indonesia.
The tension between Washington and Riyadh increased by the OPEC+ decision to implement its biggest production cut since the start of the pandemic in 2020 – by two million BPD- seems to build up as time passes.
Since that cut led to a jump in oil prices before critical US mid-term elections, President Biden, as Kirby announced, felt he needed to see if the relationship with Riyadh is where it needs to be and that it is serving the US national security interests.
Just a day before, the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, vowed to freeze all aspects of the US cooperation with Saudi Arabia and threatened to block all future weapons sales.
Accused of siding with Moscow for making a move that benefits Russia as its war with Ukraine escalates, OPEC+ and Riyadh have defended their decision, arguing that it is purely economic and is protecting the bloc’s economic interests amid a global inflation crisis and geopolitical instability.
Several high-level Saudi officials and institutions have also defended the cut in the course of last week, starting with the Saudi Foreign Ministry, which denied the claims that the Kingdom had supported the oil cuts for political reasons against the US or that it was taking sides in international conflicts.
The Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir went as far as to strike a bullish tone, stressing that Riyadh does not see or use oil as a weapon.
The same message was conveyed again on Sunday by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, who expressed Riyadh’s astonishment by the accusations that it is siding with Russia, and asked if the Kingdom is standing with Iran as well since Iran is also a member of OPEC.
In a wide-ranging speech on Monday, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz stressed that the Kingdom is working hard within its energy strategy to support the stability and balance of global oil markets.
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