The Wall Street Journal reported that US President Joe Biden recently tried to arrange contacts with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, but to no avail.
A Saudi official confirmed that the Saudi administration is negotiating with the Biden administration to grant bin Salman legal immunity as he is currently facing several lawsuits in the United States, especially the Khashoggi case. The official also stressed that discussions are taking place over agreeing on a common vision on oil production, as well as the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, as MBS wants to exploit the Ukraine crisis to reap gains, the most important of which is to restore his reputation and gain the US recognition of him.
Officials of the White House said that bin Salman and bin Zayed had rejected the US request to speak to Biden in recent weeks, as officials of the two countries became more vocal in their criticism of US policy in the Gulf. The UAE Foreign Ministry said that a call between Biden and Mohammed bin Zayed will be rescheduled, and then UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed called his American counterpart Anthony Blinken, in which they discussed “bilateral issues, regional and international issues of common interest, developments on the Ukrainian situation.”
The governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE share their concerns about the lacklustre US response to the recent missile strikes launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen against the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The two governments are also concerned over the Iranian nuclear agreement, which has entered the final stages of negotiations in recent weeks.
The Wall Street Journal also indicated that the White House is seeking to fix relations with the two countries, as Biden needs them, especially with oil prices rising to more than $130 a barrel for the first time in nearly 14 years, especially as the two countries are major oil producers that could pump millions of additional barrels of oil.
In an attempt to mend relations with Saudi officials, Brett McGurk, the Middle East coordinator for the National Security Council, and Amos Holstein, the State Department's envoy for energy affairs, traveled to Riyadh. McGurk also met with bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi to discuss the UAE's frustration with the US response over the Houthi attacks.
Furthermore, a US official said that the Biden administration “worked hard to strengthen the Saudi and Emirati missile defenses, and that America will increase its efforts in the coming months to help the two countries protect themselves, yet the Saudis and Emiratis refused to pump more oil, sticking to the production plan approved by OPEC, and a group of other producers led by Russia.”
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there were no plans to speak with bin Salman any time soon about oil, nor for Biden to travel to Saudi Arabia.
Biden and the Saudi crown prince’s tension goes back to the 2020 presidential election, when the Democratic candidate pledged to treat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a “pariah state”, after the Saudi assassination team killed Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in Istanbul.
After taking office, Biden authorised a US intelligence report that concluded that bin Salman had agreed to the plan to arrest or kill Khashoggi, despite bin Salman’s denial of knowing anything about the plot. Biden has also been publicly critic of Saudi Arabia due to its long war in Yemen, and he cut off some weapons flow Riyadh could use to target the Houthis. Biden also backed away from Trump’s plan and placed the Houthis on the official US list of global terrorist groups.
