A new Wall Street Journal report reveals that President Joe Biden and his administration essentially begged Saudi Arabia and its OPEC allies not to cut oil production until after the midterm elections.
Per the Journal:
Days before a major oil-production cut by OPEC and its Russia-led allies, U.S. officials called their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and other big Gulf producers with an urgent appeal—delay the decision for another month, according to people familiar with the talks.
The Journal adds that “The answer [was] a resounding ‘no.'”
Background
Biden has been doing a lot of begging with Saudi Arabia, the country that he once vowed to make a “pariah” state.
It started in July with Biden, amid soaring gas and oil prices, making a trip to Saudi Arabia to beg the country to up its oil production. Biden was asking for an increase of 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day. But, Suadi Arabia only agreed to a relatively insignificant increase of 100,000 barrels per day.
Then, earlier this month, OPEC announced that it would be slashing oil production by 2 million barrels per day.
According to the Journal’s report, the Biden administration begged OPEC to delay the production cut until after the midterms, obviously, realizing that the cut may have a significant negative impact on the Democrats’ election chances. But, to no avail.
The White House’s spin
On Thursday, the White House admitted to the accuracy of the Journal’s reporting.
“We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show that there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Saudi Arabia responded with a statement of its own, saying that the production cuts “are not based on the unilateral decision by a single country,” but “are based purely on economic considerations that take into account maintaining balance of supply and demand in the oil markets, as well as aim to limit volatility that does not serve the interests of consumers and producers.”
The statement also rejected a previous allegation by the White House that OPEC “align[ed] their energy policy with Russia’s war aims and against the American people.” Saudi Arabia said, “[T]hese statements … are not based on facts.”
Whatever the case may be, the fact is that America has now found itself in an extremely weak position, and it is all Biden and the Democrats’ fault.