Biden’s Saudi Gamble
U.S. President Joe Biden ended speculation over his planned trip to Saudi Arabia by confirming on Tuesday that it would indeed go ahead, with the president expected to make the trip as part of a tour from July 13-16 that includes stops in Israel and the West Bank.
Biden is set to make the journey despite outcry from human rights groups and figures within Biden’s own party, who have argued that a presidential visit gives a tacit blessing to Saudi Arabia’s rights abuses.
For Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the trip is akin to “slapping a bargain Band-Aid on the gaping wound that the U.S.-Saudi relationship has become.”
“Clearly, America should be working to build a healthier relationship with Saudi Arabia, but that simply isn’t possible unless and until the United States confronts the deep dysfunction at the core of that relationship—a dysfunction defined by the blind eye the U.S. has turned to Saudi’s support for Jihadi terrorism, the spread of Wahhabism, and its other destabilizing activities in the region,” Parsi said in an emailed statement.
Biden’s visit is a climbdown from his vow to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” on the campaign trail and clashes with moves early in his presidency to freeze arms sales and pull back U.S. support for the war in Yemen.
Still, the thaw was coming even before the rise in oil prices, with Washington discreetly playing host to the crown prince’s brother, Khalid bin Salman, this time last year.
Despite the White House olive branches, disgust at the murder of U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of a Saudi operatives, (a killing the U.S. intelligence community determined was carried out on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman), is still felt in Washington. That has most recently manifested itself in the unveiling of Jamal Khashoggi Way, the new name for the street the Saudi embassy calls home.
Like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before him, Biden is swapping tough rhetoric for appeasement, hoping that a sufficient show of rapprochement will convince the previously shunned crown prince to bless an oil production increase to help calm global oil prices—as well as reduce the price of U.S. gasoline.
As midterm elections approach, domestic economic concerns have taken priority for the Biden administration and it has begun attacking domestic energy companies for profiteering amid the squeeze on prices. “Exxon made more money than God this year,” Biden said on Friday following a speech on his plans to rein in inflation.
If it’s clear why Biden needs Saudi Arabia at this moment, it’s less clear why Saudi Arabia needs Biden, with high oil prices helping prop up Saudi government coffers.
Especially as the Saudis can, if polls are accurate, simply wait Biden out. The second half of Biden’s presidential term is set to be even more deadlocked than the first, with Republicans likely to take control of the House of Representatives, if not the Senate, in November. (That has its own foreign policy implications, as Danielle Pletka explored last week).
A second Trump term in 2024, a distinct possibility, would be the icing on the cake for Riyadh, which would expect none of the friction that has defined the U.S.-Saudi relationship under Biden.
Despite huge military investments, security is still a major concern for the Saudis, however, and an explicit U.S. defense commitment would provide the quid pro quo the kingdom wants from Washington.
“One thing after another has shaken their faith in the idea that the cavalry will be coming, and they want something other than words that will convince them that we are committed to their security,” Steven A. Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations (and FP columnist) told Foreign Policy.
It’s not likely to be a one-way street, with Cook expecting Biden to push Saudi Arabia to make commitments on two difficult issues to provide him with political cover with Congress: Improving its human rights record as well as ties with Israel.
If Biden’s journey is solely based on boosting production, it may end up a waste, with a tight oil market leaving little slack.
“The thing is, there isn’t much more oil in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to really significantly change the market,” Daniel Yergin, an oil historian and vice chairman at S&P Global Inc., told Bloomberg. “The supply situation is so razor thin.”
Janan Ganesh, writing in the Financial Times said the time is right for Biden to make the trip, and to abandon a simplistic democracy vs. autocracy framing while he’s at it. “The west is locked in a struggle against two specific autocracies. Not, as some would have it, against ‘autocracy,’” Ganesh writes. “The challenge from Russia and China (U.S. Republicans would name Iran as a third) is daunting enough without volunteering for a showdown with a complete mode of government.”