President Joe Biden and his administration found themselves the target of some fairly extreme criticism coming from Saudi Arabia as part of a Wednesday statement for attempting to apply pressure to OPEC+ into not dropping their oil and gas production prior to the midterm elections taking place next month, stating that the decision would end up sparking “negative economic consequences.”
The OPEC+ oil cartel, officially led by Saudi Arabia, announced recently that its member states would be dropping their overall oil output by roughly 2 million barrels per day and is slated to start this new production level in the coming two weeks, which itself kicked off a backlash from officials within the Biden administration.
Biden answered the announcement by stating that there would be intense “consequences” for the actions of Saudi Arabia but did not issue any sort of details of just what these “consequences” would possibly be. Old Uncle Joe “expressed openness to retaliatory measures offered by congressional Democrats such as curbing arms sales or permitting legal action against the cartel,” reported The New York Times.
The administration requested that Saudi Arabia postpone this drop for at least another month until the members of OPEC+ were slated to meet again, on the 3rd of November, to make any sort of final decisions. That particular date sits just scant few days prior to the midterm elections for the U.S.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia put out its own statement claiming its “total rejection” of claims that its choice was “politically motivated” against the United States. Just last week, Saudi Arabia voted at the United Nations to issue its condemnation against Russia for its annexing of Ukrainian land.
“The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would also like to clarify that based on its belief in the importance of dialogue and exchange of views with its allies and partners outside the OPEC + group regarding the situation in the oil markets, the Government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the US Administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences,” expressed Saudi Arabia in its release.
Remarkable statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry revealing that the U.S. suggested to delay the OPEC announcement by one month (ostensibly for election purposes) and rejecting “dictates.” https://t.co/hSbM9pkeUm
— Mohammed Alyahya محمد اليحيى (@7yhy) October 13, 2022
The Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel Al-Jubeir, chose to ignore a few questions asked during an interview held on CNN this past week concerning whether or not the kingdom was concerned about the threats coming from Biden, but he refrained from addressing the threats from Democrats to directly freeze the sale of all arms to the Saudi Arabia and to withdraw U.S. troops from the country.
“What I can tell you is that the sale of defensive weapons to Saudi Arabia serves the interests of the U.S. and serves the interests of Saudi Arabia and serves the interests of security and stability in the Middle East,” he stated. “The presence of American forces in the Middle East has been here for many, many decades. They are here to protect the stability and security of the Middle East and the stability and security of the United States.”
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have had a very strong relationship for eight decades,” he went on. “They have been very close partners in fighting extremism and terrorism and maintaining stability and security in defending the region. And have been very close allies in terms of economic and trade, an investment and we hope that this relationship we’ll look forward to this relationship continuing for the next eight decades.”
The choice from OPEC+ to drop their oil production takes place just after Biden attempted to quietly pressure the group to increase its total production to assist in the dropping of fuel prices prior to the midterm elections.