WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said there would be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia over the decision by OPEC+ to slash production, a move the administration says will benefit Russia by propping up oil prices.
“When the House and Senate gets back, they’re going to have to — there’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done, with Russia,” Biden said Tuesday in a interview with CNN.
OPEC+ last week announced plans to slash output by 2 million barrels a day. The move angered the White House and Congress and highlighted a widening split between the kingdom and the U.S. Lawmakers from both parties called for measures to punish Saudi Arabia.
Asked if it was time for the U.S. to rethink it’s relationship with the Saudis, Biden said, “Yes.”
But he declined to detail what measures were on the table. “I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be — there will be consequences,” he said.
Senate Foreign Relations Chair Robert Menendez, a Democrat, on Monday urged freezing all cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including arms sales.
Lawmakers have also revived legislation that would allow the U.S. government to sue members of OPEC for manipulating the energy market. But administration officials have conceded any legislative plan is unlikely to move until after the November midterms.
The Saudi decision was also a personal blow to Biden, who visited the country in July to urge higher production that could lower gas prices for Americans. But administration officials have since downplayed the connection.
“Let’s get straight why I went,” Biden said Tuesday, adding that the trip wasn’t “about oil” but rather about making clear that the U.S. wasn’t “going to walk away from the Middle East.”
Earlier Tuesday, top Biden aides voiced their fury with Saudi Arabia over the oil cuts.
“The decision last week on the part of OPEC to align itself and to align its energy policy with Russia’s war aims went against the interests of the American people,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the OPEC+ decision to slash oil production “short-sighted” and said “it benefited Russia at a time when nobody in any capacity should be trying to benefit Vladimir Putin.”
But the anger expressed by administration officials was not necessarily met with commensurate action. Price said that the administration would evaluate proposals from Congress and speak to allies about the U.S. partnership with Saudi Arabia over the coming weeks and months. Kirby, for his part, said the White House would “start to have conversations” when lawmakers returned from a recess scheduled to last into November, while downplaying internal efforts within the administration.
“We’re not announcing like a formal policy review here with a special team or anything like that — what we’re talking about here is the president’s belief that the relationship needs to be reviewed,” Kirby said, adding that he could not provide a time frame or blueprint for the reevaluation.
Other administration officials have repeatedly declined the chance to endorse specific proposals from Capitol Hill, including bipartisan legislation known as the “NOPEC” bill that would allow US lawsuits against countries in the cartel for manipulating energy markets.
Saudi Arabia appeared eager to deescalate the growing rift Tuesday, with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan saying his country and the U.S. shared a “strategic” partnership and that the decision by OPEC+ was “purely economic.”
“Military cooperation between Riyadh and Washington serves the interests of both countries and has contributed to stability in the region,” he said in an interview with Al Arabiya.
That political reality has fanned concerns by some in the administration over other White House energy policies, and how to sanction Moscow — and Russia’s significant energy sector — without further upsetting markets.
It’s also prompted a flood of proposals from administration allies on Capitol Hill. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Ro Khanna of California proposed legislation Tuesday to halt U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia for one year, calling their bill a message to the Saudi leadership after a move they see as aiding Russia in its war with Ukraine by propping up oil prices.
“Saudis must reverse their oil supply cuts, which aid and abet Russia’s savage criminal invasion, endanger the world economy, and threaten higher gas prices at US pumps,” Blumenthal said. “We cannot continue selling highly sensitive arms technology to a nation aligned with an abhorrent terrorist adversary.”
Khanna said the measure would force the crown prince to reconsider.
“There is no reason for the U.S. to kowtow to a regime that has massacred countless civilians in Yemen, hacked to death a Washington-based journalist, and is now extorting Americans at the pump,” he said. “There must be consequences for fleecing the American people in order to support Putin’s unconscionable war.”
The dilemma illustrated the difficulty administration officials face as they attempt to calibrate a response without harming U.S. interests — or voters’ pocketbooks. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the effort would involve every part of the White House.
“This is something the president is going to take very seriously, and we’ll have more to share,” she said.
