The current day-to-day leader of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has reportedly been mocking President Joe Biden (D) behind his back while openly and vocally questioning the man’s overall mental acuity and his ability to deal with the pressures of his role.
A report from the Wall Street Journal takes place in the wake of another report from the New York Times speaking out about the kingdom breaking off a previously secret deal that it had made with officials of the Biden administration to increase oil production prior to the midterm elections.
The report claimed that the Saudi prince “mocks President Biden in private, making fun of the 79-year-old’s gaffes and questioning his mental acuity,” and stated that he had not at all been impressed with the current president, and much preferred working with members of the previous administration.
It is worth highlighting the fact that the Biden White House has repeatedly gone after the crown prince and his country while going down the campaign trail, the administration also took a strong stand against Saudi Arabia regarding their fighting in Yemen, and they are also working alongside Iraq, the kingdom’s known number one enemy in the area. The Wall Street Journal went on to add that Biden outright refused to speak to the crown prince for well over a year before he went to Saudi Arabia, officials there did not think that the president even wanted to be in the area, let alone meet with the crown prince.
“Rarely has the chain of broken expectations and perceived insults and humiliations been greater than they are now,” stated one of the top veteran U.S. diplomats stationed in the Middle East, Aaron David Miller. “There’s almost no trust and absolutely no mutual respect.”
Previously, officials within the administration have made the claim that the trip out to the kingdom in July had nothing to do with oil, but a recently released report in the Time highlighted a “secret deal” that the administration had previously, and falsely, thought it had managed to secure.
Biden admin officials kicked off the meeting with the Saudis this past spring and allegedly created a “private oil deal” that would see the kingdom try and push the OPEC oil cartel to increase their output of oil by almost 400,000 barrels per day that would take place starting that July instead of September, as it was previously scheduled.
Biden’s team was sure that they had managed to lock in their deal, but Saudi officials were privately stating that they had absolutely zero plans to go through with the original plan.
The report highlighted that the first warning took place back in August as OPEC announced that there would only be an increase of 100,000 barrels of oil in production, roughly half of what was expected. Quite a few weeks later, OPEC stated that it would be cutting the already reduced 100,000 barrel increase.
The administration then discovered that the kingdom was slated to cut production and tried desperately to halt the cut before it went into effect but nothing they tried worked.
The report stated that the entire Biden admin was just clueless regarding the reason the kingdom stabbed them in the back over their “secret deal.”
The Journal highlighted that the broken relationship between the kingdom and the U.S. created quite a few different risks for the United States, which include “counterterrorism operations, efforts to contain Iran and Israel’s deeper integration into the region.”
