Tel Aviv With his trip to Saudi Arabia, US President Joe Biden wanted to improve relations with the country. It should be encouraged to produce more oil in order to ease the oil markets. In addition, Biden wanted to report the USA back as an important player in the Middle East. Washington wants to prevent China and Russia from gaining more influence in the Middle East.
In fact, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced during Biden’s visit that he wanted to increase the maximum possible oil production capacity from the current 12 to 13 million barrels. In addition, the kingdom has run out of extra capacity to further increase production, he said. However, the crown prince did not make any promises that he would actually produce more oil.
On the evening of the first meeting, however, local journalists were primarily interested in a symbolic question: would Biden shake hands with the Saudi crown prince? So the presumed next king of the desert kingdom, whom Biden had blamed for the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi during the election campaign? The protocol had agreed on a clever compromise: there was no handshake, but a fist salute.
There are two versions of the first meeting between Biden and the crown prince. One comes from Biden, who claims that the murder of Kashoggi was discussed right at the beginning of the meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, better known by the acronym MBS.
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The Saudi journalist, who lived in the United States, was brutally murdered and dismembered by a hit squad in 2018. “Without ifs and buts,” he addressed the crown prince and made it clear to him “what I thought of it then and what I think of it now.” However, MBS has rejected any responsibility, said Biden at a press conference. “He basically said he wasn’t personally responsible for it.”
The second version comes from the MBS environment. He went on the offensive against Biden, according to the Al-Arabiya news channel, which is financed by Saudi Arabia, citing a Saudi government official. Such incidents can occur anywhere in the world. The newspaper accused Biden of several human rights violations, for example in Iraq or Afghanistan. Al-Arabija quoted the government official as saying that this could only mean that “imposing values on them would be counterproductive”.
Biden will not ‘leave a vacuum in the Middle East’
MBS is said to have taught Biden a lesson about morality in international politics, according to al-Arabija. Every country has its own values that must be respected. If the US only negotiates with countries that share its values and principles 100 percent, there will be no countries other than NATO to negotiate with them, MBS added. The two countries must therefore coexist despite their differences, he said.
Whether Biden has achieved his goal of improving relations with the royal family remains to be seen. In an Op-Ed for the Washington Post last week, he described why this is important as “strengthening the US position in the Middle East”, both vis-à-vis Moscow and Beijing.
“We must confront Russian aggression, (also) put ourselves in the best possible position to outperform China, and work to bring stability to a vital region of the world,” Biden wrote. In Riyadh, he reiterated these goals: “We will not leave a vacuum in the Middle East for Russia or China to fill.”
>>Read also: The end of a sworn enmity: Saudi Arabia and Israel move closer together
Both Moscow and Beijing responded promptly to this challenge. In the next few days, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to buy drones in Tehran, which he intends to use against targets in Ukraine. And the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the Middle East was “not the backyard of another country” and contradicted Biden by pointing out that “there is no vacuum in the region”.
Murder accusation or not: Biden makes no secret of his concern that he will lose his role as Riyadh’s closest partner to China. Beijing has used the diplomatic coldness between the US and Saudi Arabia following the assassination of Kashoggi to expand its ties with Saudi Arabia. From Riyadh’s point of view, Beijing as an ally has the advantage that no uncomfortable questions about human rights are asked in China.
In addition, the People’s Republic is more important as a trading partner than the USA. China and Saudi Arabia sealed a “strategic partnership” in 2016, which is linked to “stable long-term cooperation in the energy sector”. In March of this year, Riyadh went one step further and announced that some of its oil sales would no longer be in US dollars but in Chinese renminbi.
Compared to China, the US trades little with Saudi Arabia
Bilateral trade with China was valued at $65.2 billion in 2020. By comparison, bilateral trade between the US and Saudi Arabia in the same year was a meager $19.7 billion. It is dominated by Saudi oil sales and cars and planes that Saudi Arabia imports from the US.
Biden’s hope that there would be a normalization process between Israel and Saudi Arabia was dampened. Opening up Saudi airspace to Israeli airlines has been hailed as the first step. A senior Saudi minister described the normalization of relations with Israel as a “strategic option”. But he clarified that a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a “prerequisite” before Riyadh would establish formal ties with Jerusalem.
In view of the growing threat from Iran, the US wants to continue to support the Saudis in self-defense, said Biden. According to a joint final declaration, the kingdom should be empowered to “protect its people and sovereign territory against external threats”. These were released jointly by the White House and the Saudi State Department after Biden’s meeting with Saudi King Salman and MBS.
Tehran’s “interference in other countries’ internal affairs” and “support of terrorism by armed proxies” must be stopped. In addition, Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. A specific strategy for preventing this was not mentioned.
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