WASHINGTON — As President Biden was planning a politically risky trip to Saudi Arabia this summer, his top aides thought they had struck a secret deal to boost oil production through the end of the year — an arrangement that could have helped justify breaking a campaign pledge to shun the kingdom and its crown prince.
It didn’t work out that way.
Mr. Biden went through with the trip. But earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by two million barrels per day, the opposite of the outcome the administration thought it had secured as the Democratic Party struggles to deal with inflation and high gas prices heading into the November elections.
The move led angry Biden administration officials to reassess America’s relationship with the kingdom and produced a flurry of accusatory statements between the two governments — including a charge by the White House that Saudi Arabia was helping Russia in its war in Ukraine.
Lawmakers who had been told about the trip’s benefits in classified briefings and other conversations that included details of the oil deal — which has not been previously disclosed and was supposed to lead to a surge in production between September and December — have been left fuming that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman duped the administration.
This account is based on interviews with American officials and officials from Gulf Arab nations, as well as Middle East experts with knowledge of discussions between the two nations.
What happened over the last half-year is a story of handshake agreements, wishful thinking, missed signals and finger-pointing over broken promises. Far from rebuilding a relationship with a leader Mr. Biden had once pledged to treat as a “pariah” after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the outcome has been another low point in America’s tumultuous ties with Saudi Arabia.
The episode is also a revealing example of how Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of its ambitious and often ruthless crown prince, appears eager to shed some of its longtime reliance on the United States, with Prince Mohammed trying to position Saudi Arabia as a powerhouse of its own.
American officials said that, even days before the OPEC Plus decision, they had received assurances from the crown prince there would be no production cuts — and when they learned of the Saudi reversal they made a futile last-ditch push to change minds in the royal court.
The Saudi Energy Ministry said in a statement that “the kingdom rejects these allegations and stresses that such mischaracterizations made by anonymous sources are entirely false.”
The ministry added, “The decisions of OPEC Plus are reached by the consensus of all members and determined solely by market fundamentals, not politics.”
White House officials admit they were angered and surprised by what they said was a Saudi about-face, but insist their overall strategy to lower energy costs is working.
The State of the War
Fears of Escalation: President Biden renewed his warning to Russia that it would be a “serious mistake” to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. His comments came as Western officials said Moscow was seeking to create a pretext for escalating the war by making false claims that Kyiv was preparing to detonate a so-called dirty bomb.
Anti-Drone Warfare: Since Russia began terrorizing Ukrainian cities in recent weeks with Iranian-made drones, Ukraine has turned its focus to an intense counter-drone strategy. The hastily assembled effort has been surprisingly successful.
A Devastated Land: Ukrainians who are returning to liberated towns are encountering destruction on a staggering scale, vital services cut and the prospect of a lethal winter ahead.
A New Front?: Russia is massing thousands of troops in its western neighbor Belarus, raising fears that Moscow might plan to open another front in the war. But officials in Kyiv and Washington are casting doubt on whether the buildup represents a serious threat.
“We have a disagreement with Saudi Arabia over the most recent production cut, but our energy policy has always focused on prices, not number of barrels — and that policy is succeeding with crude oil prices down over 30 percent this year alone,” Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement on Tuesday night.
At the same time, U.S. officials are bracing for another potential price surge in December, if a European embargo on Russian oil goes into effect and the Saudis refuse to increase oil production to make up for the anticipated reduction in supply. The officials say that would be a sure sign that the Saudis were helping the Russians by undermining the American and European-led plan.
“While we clearly disagreed with the OPEC Plus decision in early October, we recognize the importance of continuing to work and communicate with Saudi Arabia and other producers to ensure a stable and fair global energy market,” said Amos Hochstein, Mr. Biden’s energy envoy.
Some analysts say that senior American and Saudi officials have misread each other on both the dynamics of the oil market and the geopolitics around Russia, and that the Biden administration will have a hard time figuring out how things went awry.
“Deconstructing Saudi decision-making right now is like Kremlinology on steroids,” said Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “It’s become a matter of a relative handful of people around the king and the crown prince.”
“Even the most well-informed people in the United States often don’t know,” he added.
The White House has indicated it might seek retribution for the Saudi decision, and some Democrats in Congress are making a push to scale back some military and economic ties to the kingdom. Even some of the president’s staunchest supporters have called the episode an example of the administration sacrificing principles for political expediency — and having little to show for it.
“There’s now a level of embarrassment as the Saudis merrily go on their way,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/us/p ... -deal.html