When Joe Biden gave Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, a fist bump in Jeddah in July, it was viewed as a moment of excruciating realpolitik: Biden, who had vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state over the assassination of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was instead palling around with the man believed to have ordered the hit. Today, that gambit appears to have failed – and the relationship is in tatters.
Biden visited Saudi Arabia in the hope of persuading the world’s largest oil producer to increase production and offset petrol costs rising as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, last week, Saudi Arabia and its allied oil-producing nations in the Opec+ group – including Russia – agreed to a surprise reduction in supply that will push prices up. The undoubted beneficiary is Vladimir Putin.
