After OPEC+ last week announced that it would reduce its oil production target, President Joe Biden said Tuesday that “there will be consequences” for U.S.-Saudi relations.
He made his announcement after powerful Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) said that the United States should immediately stop all cooperation with Saudi Arabia including arms sales.
In an interview with Jake Tapper of CNN, Biden refused to discuss the options that he was looking at.
Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, stated that a policy review would take place but did not give any details about the timeline or who would oversee it. She said that the United States would be closely monitoring the situation “in the coming weeks, and months”.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan stated that the OPEC+ decision was purely an economic one and was unanimously taken by its member countries.
Prince Faisal stated to Al Arabiya that OPEC+ members acted responsibly, and made the right decision.
After weeks of opposition by U.S. officials, OPEC+, the oil producer organization that includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC), and allies, including Russia, announced the production goal.
The United States charged Saudi Arabia with kowtowing Russia. Russia objects to Western caps on the price of Russian oil as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. officials were trying to convince its largest Arab partner to drop the idea of a production reduction, but Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, wasn’t swayed.
Biden and Bin Salman had clashed in July’s visit to Jeddah over the 2018 death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist said.
