Saudi Arabia sees the US as weak
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OP's title is wrong. It isn't the "US", it is Biden specifically. Linked article is: "Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to humiliate Biden as part of a global power play"
Look, the Democrats did this to themselves the moment they decided that seeking revenge against the Saudis for the killing of Khashoggi was more important than... actual geopolitics. And it makes sense why the Democrats would be idiots: the Democrats are the core members of the Globohomo International, and the international media is the #1 force of Globohomo International. So when Khashoggi was killed, the international media decided that this was their moment to flex how they were even more powerful than nation-states now, and they'd prove it by absolutely smashing Saudi Arabia to make an example of it.
Well, it turns out that despite 24/7 negative press coverage for months, the Saudis were not impressed, and it turns out that nobody in the world was willing to get on board with anything like sanctions just to suck the dicks of the globohomo press.
Trump laughing at the press and making a mockery of them by saying that he totally believed the Crown Prince was just the icing on the cake, but I don't think Hillary would have had the balls to actually sanction the Saudis.
So the Democrats and Joe Biden have, for purely domestic political purposes, decided to be two-faced and secretly try to cut deals with the Saudis while acting like assholes to the Saudis in public. Biden also cut arms sales to the Saudis, using as a pretext the war in Yemen that the US wanted the Saudis to fight in the 1st place.
Predictably, the Saudis, who aren't retards and can see what Biden is doing, and know that the Democrats are their enemy while Trump was their friend, had 0 interest in doing Biden favors, and promptly nut punched him when it suited them.
The Saudis promised to help Biden in the election by boosting oil production, and in exchange, Biden finally stopped blocking arms sales to the Saudis. Do you remember when Trump was impeached for holding up Ukraine aid supposedly unless they investigated Hunter Biden? How horrible it was that Trump would abuse his power to benefit himself politically? Well here is Joe Biden doing exactly that quite out in the open, 0 fucks given, and yet the globohomo press is totally silent. Rules for thee, but not for mee, but then again, we already knew that, the Democrats have been operating like that for a long time now.
The US has more to gain from SA than SA has from the US. Ultimately, all SA gets from the US is access to purchase, at high prices, top end weapon systems, which, quite frankly, is more of a benefit to the US than the Saudis. We aren't giving them discounts. We are profiting from them.
We also keep some troops in and around SA, but that's because we hate Iran and want to contain Iran, so we'd be doing that regardless, we aren't doing it as a favor to the Saudis, hence why our troops are mostly in places like Qatar and UAE. And ultimately we are primarily in the Gulf to act as the enforcer to protect oil exports that are going to the EU. America doesn't get its oil from the middle east, we get it locally and from other places.
It was hard to put the entire scenario in a short statement.
What do you think of the possibility of actions short of sanctions, namely the adding of Aramco Saudi Arabian Oil Corp to the banned investment list alongside the likes of China Telecom?
China Telecom was listed in US stock exchanges, but afaik Aramco is not.
US investors aren't allowed to buy their HK listed equities or ETFs containing them either.
They could do the same here, force the EEM ETF and others to throw out Aramco. It would probably dent their share price for at least a little while.
Or you know, cutting production in response to the United States bombing Nord Stream, an OPEC+ country's civilian infrastructure.
Welcome to the consequences of having a dementia ridden old pedo as your puppet leader than anyone that portrays strength and competence.
True, the problem with the latter is you have to offer them more to placate them but at least they may be seen as a threat. Biden, all the people against him are taking bets if he remembers to do anything the next day.
It is.
Of course. Remember when Biden, less than 24 hours into his presidency, canceled pipelines, oil leases and exploration. Then OPEC instantly slashed production by millions of barrels, raising oil prices.
The Arab nations maintain stability by bribing the extended royal family and elites with oil revenue. To them the price of oil only dictates how much they pump and sell, if the price is driven down they have to produce more to cover their fixed costs, if it goes up they'll slash production to save oil and keep the price high.
The Trump era of low prices was the culmination of US production driving prices down, leading to the Arab nations having to dump more oil on the market to keep their revenue up, leading to them lowering the prices further and having to sell even more oil. At one point it got so bad they'd pay you to take oil if you had a tanker to put it in.
Faced with a US president who sabotaged his own nation, and then goes and begs them to pump more oil to keep US pump prices low, of course they'll see him as weak.
There's no shortage of women willing to let a prince shit on them for money.
You're both thinking of the UAE.