Last week, it was reported that t was reported that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rejected a request to speak to Biden on the phone as the president tried to convince the Kingdom to pump more oil to ease the pressure of the Russian oil ban.
The visit was supposed to mend relations with the oil giant after the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Biden was also supposed to pressure Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to bring down prices and lift pressure off of US and European consumers.
But, for the third time in fewer than eight months, Saudi Arabia deliberately humiliated President Joe Biden on the world stage.
Biden, lauded as a preeminent foreign-policy expert after a half-century in the Senate, couldn’t get the Saudis to answer his phone calls in March. He made a personal visit to the kingdom in August to ask them to increase oil production, and they declined. confirming the Biden administration had asked them to hold off oil-production cuts until after the midterm elections to “avoid bad news.”
Instead of coming back from his visit in the Middle East with a deal, Biden returned to the US with his tail between his legs . Now, OPEC+, which is led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, have released a statement saying they will be dramatically reducing the amount of oil they’ll produce. This was after Joe Biden asked them to hold off on the cuts to their oil production until after the mid-term elections. Their decision to cut back on oil production before the mid-terms could have a catastrophic effect with Democrats who are already being blamed for high inflation and skyrocketing fuel prices.
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Aljubeir, explained OPEC+’s decision to cut oil output in an interview with CNN:
I spoke with Saudi's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs @AdelAljubeir about the recent OPEC+ decision to slash output. Despite Biden's threats of "consequences" to Saudi Arabia, the minister tells me he hopes to maintain good relations with the U.S. pic.twitter.com/x5oi9w1ZMu
— Becky Anderson (@BeckyCNN) October 12, 2022
But OPEC’s response to their cut in fuel production didn’t set well with the “Big Guy,” who threatened them over the weekend in an interview with CNN:
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s cousin has now issued a violent response to Biden’s threat against those who “challenge” Saudi Arabia after Biden warned there would be “consequences” for OPEC+’s decision to cut oil production.
Daily Mail reports – In a message aimed at ‘the West,’ Saud al-Shaalan is seen in a video saying ‘anybody who challenges the existence of this kingdom, we are all projects of jihad and martyrdom. Anybody that thinks they can threaten us–‘
Al-Shaalan’s threat comes at a time of sky-high tensions between Washington and Riyadh after OPEC+ cut oil production by two million barrels per day and the Biden administration accused the Saudi Kingdom of aligning itself with Russia and Putin.
‘The country that benefits the most from this 2 million barrel cut is Russia,’ White House national security spokesman John Kirby said in a call with reporters on Friday.
The cut ‘allows [Putin] to continue to fund his war making machine and it certainly gave him, Mr Putin, a sense of comfort here,’ Kirby continued.
The Saudi foreign minister said such an accusation is intended to ‘distort the facts’ and claimed Saudi Arabia has taken a ‘principled position’ with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war.
