Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia next month is, arguably, as important as anything that the UK government is doing itself on cost of living. As I say in the magazine this week, only the Saudis deciding to pump substantially more is going to bring down the price of oil and, therefore, petrol.
The West’s relationship with Saudi Arabia is deeply, morally problematic.
The strains in the US-Saudi relationship – remember how Joe Biden said on the campaign trail that he wanted to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah because of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi – meant that the Saudis have not stepped in to help in the way they did after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Rather, they have let oil prices rise significantly while they demanded not only that Biden stop shunning Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for his role in the murder of Khashoggi but also that the US pays more attention to Riyadh’s concerns about Iran and the terms on which it may be allowed to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).
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