Democrats in Congress are mounting a new effort to stop the Biden administration from selling arms to Saudi Arabia in exchange for OPEC+’s decision to significantly cut oil production.
Last week’s announcement by the oil cartel was widely seen as a boost for Russia, which relies on its energy exports to finance the Kremlin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. It will also undermine Western efforts to stifle Moscow’s energy dollars.
In retaliation, Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called for new legislation to “immediately stop all U.S. arms sales” to the Middle Eastern kingdom, which leads OPEC+, in a joint editorial published in Politico. on Sunday.
They criticized Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, as a “nuclear bomb racketeer” for his increasingly hostile threats to use such force in Ukraine.
OPEC+’s cut of 2 million barrels of oil per day “will worsen global inflation, undermine successful efforts in the US to reduce the price of gas, and help fuel Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” “, the legislators wrote.
President Joe Biden called the decision disappointing in comments to reporters last week.
The decision will go into effect in November and could cause US gasoline prices to rise 10 to 20 cents a gallon across the country, Gasbuddy told Newsweek.
The national average as of Monday is about $3.92, according to AAA.
Blumenthal and Khanna claimed that US military deals with the Saudis, which lawmakers say are “more extensive than many realize,” were now Biden’s biggest point of leverage.
President Joe Biden was criticized for meeting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Jeddah over the summer at a time when US oil prices were causing financial problems for Americans at home, although the White House denied that the trip was for oil.
It is now being brought up again after the Saudi-led OPEC+ announced a drastic output cut that has been seen as a major boost for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.
“Simply put, the United States should not provide such unlimited control of strategic defense systems to an apparent ally of our greatest enemy: nuclear bomb racketeer Vladmir (sp) Putin,” Khanna and Blumenthal wrote.
They stopped short of outright condemning US-Saudi relations, acknowledging its place as a leader in the area and “as a regional ally against Iran”, but denounced OPEC+’s decision as “a terrible mistake”.
“The country’s support for Russia should prompt a far-reaching review of the US-Saudi relationship,” the lawmakers added.
Democrats said the legislative effort already has support from both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate.
But a former Trump administration official who worked on the US-Saudi relationship rejected the idea in a statement to DailyMail.com.
“It is a national disgrace that President Biden has outsourced energy security to the American people and put them at the mercy of foreign wars, dictators and cartels,” said Victoria Coates, a former special envoy for energy to Saudi Arabia during the Trump administration.
“The proper response is not to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia, an ally of over seventy years that comes under direct fire daily from Iranian proxies in Yemen. It is harnessing our potential as a major energy-producing nation that can responsibly protect our citizens against shocks in international energy markets.”
Representative Ro Khanna of California (left) and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut (right) called for legislation to stop US arms sales to Saudi Arabia in response
Meanwhile, US-Saudi relations were also put under the microscope by another Biden ally on Sunday.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut advised the president to “reconsider” US military cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
Murphy criticized the long-standing US policy of looking “the other way” at Saudi Arabia’s many human rights abuses, including the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi, noting that the kingdom showed no such loyalties.
“We wanted to know when things were bad, in a global crisis, that the Saudis would choose us over Russia,” he said. ‘Well, they didn’t, they chose Russia.’
“They chose to back the Russians, raise oil prices…and that has to have consequences.”
Biden himself had criticized the Saudi royal family during the election campaign, contrasting with the Trump administration’s more open relationships with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, known as MBS, in particular.
He vowed to make the kingdom a “pariah” while on the debate stage in November 2019 and vowed he would “pay the price” for Khashoggi’s dismemberment and murder.
Those words came back to haunt him just this summer as Biden embarked on a trip to the Middle East where he met with Saudi officials, including MBS, in Jeddah.
The White House had said the trip was an effort to reaffirm the US relationship with Gulf allies.
But Biden’s critics accused him of going head-to-head with the Saudis at a time when domestic gasoline prices were at record highs.
Prices at the pump fell sharply during the second half of the summer after hitting an average of $5 a gallon across the country.
However, they have started to rise again, with the national average up more than 60 cents from last month to now.
