Democrats tear into Saudi Arabia over OPEC+ cut

The U.S.-Saudi relationship is again under pressure in Congress after the OPEC+ alliance announced a significant oil production cut just months after President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in what was then seen as a bid to bring down prices at the pump.

The White House on Thursday said “all options” are under consideration after Saudi-led OPEC and its allied producers agreed to slash production by two million barrels per day starting this November. 

But those options do not include restricting US military support for Saudi Arabia, according to State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel — although a growing number of Congressional Democrats are calling for just that. 

“We have a multiplicity of interests with regards to Saudi Arabia,” Patel said, but acknowledged the OPEC+ decision was “shortsighted” and could hit lower- and middle-income countries especially hard. 

OPEC+ said in a statement that its production cut, which risks further driving up oil prices in the United States before the crucial midterm elections, was due to the “uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks.” 

The decision prompted a collective “I told you so” among some Democrats who this summer questioned the wisdom of Biden’s visit to the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah. 

“It’s pretty clear that we got played,” a Democratic Congressional staffer told Al-Monitor. “We gained virtually nothing from the trip.” 

During the presidential campaign, Biden vowed to make Riyadh a global “pariah” for the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi and other human rights abuses, but faced pressure to make amends with the Gulf monarchy as gasoline prices surged in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Asked whether he regretted his trip, Biden said Thursday it “was not essentially for oil.” 

“The trip was about the Middle East and about Israel and rationalization of positions. But it is a disappointment,” Biden said of the OPEC+ cut. 

For some of Biden’s Democratic allies, the bloc’s decision offers some of the clearest evidence yet that the longstanding alliance with Saudi Arabia isn’t paying off. 

“I thought the whole point of selling arms to the Gulf States despite their human rights abuses, nonsensical Yemen War, working against US interests in Libya, Sudan etc, was that when an international crisis came, the Gulf could choose America over Russia/China,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted Wednesday. 

Echoing Murphy’s criticism was the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “The royal Saudi family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin tweeted. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without their alliance.” 

To ease gasoline prices, Biden had previously ordered the release of another 10 million oil barrels from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In a statement Wednesday, the White House said it would also consult with Congress on reducing OPEC’s control over energy prices, hinting at its openness to legislation that would allow the US to sue the oil cartel’s members for market manipulation. 

But a number of progressive Democrats and longtime Saudi critics want the administration to go a step further. 

“President Biden should make it clear that if the Saudis keep driving up oil prices, we will cut off US weapons,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in a statement to Al-Monitor. 

In response to what they called “a hostile act against the United States,” Reps. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), and Susan Wild (D-Pa.) introduced a bill that would mandate the removal of US troops and missile systems from both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, also a top oil producer. 

“Think it’s time we take back our Patriot batteries that are in Saudi Arabia,” tweeted Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). “If they like the Russians so much they can use their very ‘reliable’ military technology.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not return a request for comment.