Biden admin begged Saudis to push oil cut until after midterms: report
By: Caitlin Doornbos (New York Post)
Hey, quid pro Joe is back! Didn't Biden use a quid pro quo threat against Ukraine not too long ago? At least that's what Biden was bragging about. Seems like Biden's strong-arm diplomacy ain't working. Joe has lost his mojo.
C'mon, Joe, everyone knows that you're going to have to take steps to boost oil production and upgrade the fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States. Those salt domes storing oil are a finite resource; they won't last forever. Democrats won't be able to scapegoat their way out of this mess. And everyone knows that's because Biden's quid pro quo diplomacy ain't working.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia shrugged off pleas by White House officials to delay last week's OPEC+ decision to slash oil production, with Riyadh viewing the demand as a ploy to "avoid bad news" until after the upcoming midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
American officials cautioned the Saudi government that cutting oil production would weaken Washington's already strained relationship with Riyadh, and that the US would interpret the move as the kingdom taking Russia's side in its ongoing war on Ukraine, according to the newspaper, which cited unnamed sources.
Instead, the Saudi-led group of oil-producing nations announced it will slash output by 2 million barrels a day, causing a spike in the price of crude oil — with a rise in US gas prices expected to follow.
In response, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez called on the Biden administration to cut all ties with the Middle Eastern nation Tuesday.
"The United States must immediately freeze all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including any arms sales and security cooperation beyond what is absolutely necessary to defend U.S. personnel and interests," Menendez said in a statement. "As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough."
Saudi Arabia is the US' largest foreign military sales customer, with more than $100 billion in active cases, according to the State Department — which in August approved the $3.05 billion sale of 300 Patriot guided tactical ballistic missiles and associated equipment.
Three other House Democrats introduced a bill last week that would pull all US troops and missile defense systems from Saudi Arabia in response to the OPEC+ decision.
"Saudi Arabia['s] … drastic cut in oil production, despite President Biden's overtures to both countries in recent months, is a hostile act against the United States and a clear signal that they have chosen to side with Russia in its war against Ukraine," said Reps. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, Sean Casten of Illinois and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania in a joint statement.
Also on Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois called on Congress to pass the NOPEC Act, which would make "oil-producing and exporting cartels" illegal in the US. The bill, passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee in May, would also strip foreign leaders of their sovereign immunity in oil cartel cases.
"Saudi Arabia's collusion with Putin to fix prices will increase gas prices for Americans at a time when inflation is high," Durbin said on Twitter. "The Senate must take action against price fixing by OPEC and pass this legislation."
Meanwhile, White House officials said publicly Tuesday that Biden would "re-evaluate" the partnership between Washington and Riyadh, after the president's much-scrutinized and criticized July meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to have been a miserable failure — despite press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisting the president did not regret his travel to the Middle East.
"The president has been very clear that United States needs a different sort of relationship with Saudi Arabia," Jean-Pierre said. "When OPEC made the decision to align their energy policy with Russia's war aims and against the American people further underscores that reasoning to realign that relationship to reevaluate that relationship with Saudi Arabia."
Hours earlier, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN that those conversations should start "right away."
"I don't think this is anything that's going to have to wait or should wait, quite frankly, for much longer," he said.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the Biden has wanted to review the American relationship with Saudi Arabia since taking office last year, but the OPEC+ decision revamped that conversation.
"Our North Star - our guiding principle - [is] that we have a relationship that serves our interests," Price said. "This is not a bilateral relationship that has always served our interests since we came into office."
According to the State Department, Saudi Arabia is America's third-leading source of imported oil.
In response to the OPEC+ cut, Biden abruptly announced on Oct. 5 that he would release 10 million more barrels from the US strategic reserve in a bid to offset cuts that have already boosted prices at the pump.
Crude oil prices subsequently spiked, adding more pressure to the global energy markets already strained by the effects of Russia's invasion.
The average nationwide price of a gallon of gas stood at $3.92 on Tuesday, according to AAA — up 12 cents from last week.
Price called the OPEC+ decision "short-sighted" and predicted the oil cuts "over the longer term won't serve anyone's interests."
"It won't work to the benefit of OPEC individual member countries," Price said. "In fact, this will lead countries around the world who are not members of the cartel to take steps to become even more resilient, to become even more energy independent, to explore steps to lessen the grip that the OPEC cartel has on global energy prices."
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That's a nice pooch ya got there, Joe. Have you screwed it lately?
Probably several times at least...
Another good thing Biden does, turn our friends into enemies...
He's going to be forced to up production, unless he wants the nations infrastructure to grind to a halt as costs rise to astronomical levels...
(but that was his campaign promise wasn't it) {chuckle}
Another day, another quid pro quo. Biden's work is never done.
Maybe Biden can announce another moonshot. What's the range for an all electric rocket?
In Denver, at Kroger pumps, price for regular bottomed out at $3.42 briefly in early Sept.
Slowly rose to and hovered around $3.59 until a couple days ago....went to $3.79 over night.
Groceries haven't dropped a bit. This is all on Brandon
Nice prices. Here on the west side of Phoenix we run from cheapest at $4.79 to $4.99. Of course Arizona suffers from NIMBYism and refuses to build a refinery within the state so we get all our gas either from California or Texas.
Damned fine prices, here on the left coast of Washington, we are at 5.20 a gallon and rising... (almost daily)
401k is in the shitter too.
Reality of it is, they aren't "slashing output". People forget that Bumbling Biden begged OPEC+ to increase production for a short time. Well that short time has expired and they are returning to normal production. Maybe if somebody hadn't suspended drilling leases the US could produce for ourselves again. But hey, lets stay stuck on stupid.
But..but...but....American arms manufacturers are making a great living out of sales to Saudi Arabia, and America needs the OPEC oil to alleviate inflation and Saudi Arabia is no friend of Iran (which is no friend of America) so let's just continue downplaying the fact that the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis and the Saudi's are the probable assassins of Kashoggi. Speaking out of both sides of one's mouth is The American Way, like saying America adheres to China's One China Policy as set out in the joint communiques but will ignore it while American government officials continually provoke Beijing. There was a time, before the Afghanistan debacle, that America might have considered the cutback to be a kind of declaration of war, and invaded Saudi Arabia because of it, wasn't there?
Under which president would that have been? Seriously.
I am not pretending we haven't gone to war for some very stupid reasons; or that we haven't got our asses handed to us nation building before we have defeated the enemy (Afghanistan). You might be able to argue that Obama took us to war in Libya over oil contracts for England and France; and that ended in disaster- with Al Qaeda and now ISIS/ISIL operating freely in the country (But supposedly that was to protect Libyan civilians. Just don't ask the Southern Tribes, or those loyal to Gaddafi.) Maybe Biden and the Democrats are following in Obama's footsteps. Only problem is that Libya was never our ally; and the Saudis have for a very long time. Democrats would have a hard time swaying Republicans to go to war with Saudi Arabia.
Yes, and if they weren't them Russian or Chinese arms manufacturers gladly would be.
Ask the Human Fuck Up Machine in the Oval office about that. We have more than enough resources in the US to supply ourselves; but for some strange reason we aren't.
First truly correct statement you made. But you never can tell Biden is negotiating with Iran over renewing the nuclear arms pact- and he really wants Iranian oil. So who knows? Maybe the US starts to back Iran (whose militias are targeting US soldiers); and the Chinese and Russians can jump to the Saudi's side. Dumber things have happened.
Whose is downplaying it? If we went after the country of origin of every terrorist then Afghanistan, Pakistan, and pretty much the whole damn middle east would be smoking rubble. Better to go after the terrorists directly don't you think?
As for Kashoggi. Yes, we are overlooking it. Just like China is overlooking Russia's invasion with Ukraine by signing all of those wonderful contracts for oil, wheat, and goods. It is keeping the Russians financially stable and fund the war. China overlooks Iran's militias operating freely throughout the ME and attacking US troops. They also overlook the threat from China and North Korea getting nuclear weapons. Not to mention the way both countries treat their people. Every nation overlooks things in the name of their own self interests. You act shocked that the US does the same.
Like we ignored China's very dangerous temper tantrum where it fired rockets and flew sorties over Taiwan? Where some of the missiles fired even entered Japanese waters. Or do you want to acknowledge that China has encroached on Taiwan's defensive airspace long before Pelosi ever made her visit?
Poor picked on China. It should be able to steal US technology, intellectual property, and profit from it however they deem fit. They should be able to hold the US supply chain hostage whenever they feel like it. The whole world simply should stand aside and let them do whatever they, whenever they want, and to whomever they want. Things would be so much better for the whole planet Xi's way./S
If you want me to read what those links are for I suggest you copy and paste them, and maybe instead of boring the rest of the members with them you can PN them to me. In the meantime, tell your POTUS to keep feeding the Ukraine war because there are still buildings there that haven't yet been flattened and some people are still able to live in their homes.
And I don't blame you for being critical of China, although i know much criticism is merely a deflection away from what's happening in the USA. In the 16 years I've lived here I've never come across an unhappy person, and nobody here sleeps under a bridge since abject poverty has been eradicated. Sorry to hear about the inflation in the USA, but for some strange reason there is almost no inflation at all in China - must be because of the horrible CPC's greatest concern, the good welfare of the people, but you see that's the Confucian aspect of Chinese tradition and culture and it's ingrained.
How would you know? I'll bet you've never been here. There is no utopia on our planet, but my wife and I live very comfortably in an upscale and convenient area of a big city on my Canada and Ontario pensions. In Canada or the USA we could only afford to live in a small room with a shared kitchen and bathroom down the hall in a small town, not somewhere with the kind of conveniences and necessities I have here. I am respected and well treated by all, including police and government officials and I'm damn happy. Maybe that IS utopia, for me at least.
Oh, and I never have to worry about being shot, because nobody has a gun, not even regular police or bank guards. Only the military, special SWAT units, and armoured van guards delivering money to the banks.
Just in case. It is possible for a person to have a smuggled gun so they are just being super careful. The only other people I've heard of having had guns were the radical Ughurs. Being super careful is not unusual here, especially when you consider the zero covid policy.
After 10 pm here - turning off the computer in a few minutes.