Saudi, UAE de-facto leaders decline calls with Biden amid oil price hikes

LONDON - Saudi Crown Prince and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince have declined calls with US president Joe Biden in recent weeks, reported the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, citing officials from the US and the Middle East as Washington is struggling to stem a surge in energy prices exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The discontent from both Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan was a message to the Biden administration about their disappointment with Washington’s inaction to recent drone and ballistic missile strikes by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The two Gulf Arab nations also expressed their concern that Iran’s nuclear deal with the Western powers does not take into account their security interests.

“There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn’t happen,” a US official to the WSJ of a plan for Saudi Prince Mohammed and Biden to speak.

“It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi oil],” added the official.

Biden announced on Tuesday a ban on US imports of Russian oil, bluntly warning that while the move would hurt Putin, “there will be a cost as well here in the United States.”

But the US President sought to avoid being blamed for the record-high gas prices by dubbing it “Putin's price hike.”

The OPEC+ coalition of oil producers - made up of OPEC members led by Saudi Arabia and non-cartel members led by Russia – downplayed the likelihood of any boost to global oil supply, saying that the alliance’s policies “have nothing to do with the surge in crude prices.”

In a bid to find other alternatives, the Biden administration has approached oil-rich Venezuela, which has freed two jailed Americans, including an oil executive imprisoned alongside colleagues for more than four years.

Venezuela is Putin’s top ally in Latin America and a top oil exporter. Its reentry into US energy markets could mitigate the fallout at the pump from a possible oil embargo on Russia. But the discussions in Caracas were quickly condemned by top Democrat and Republic senators.

US Senator Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Biden’s efforts to unite the world against Putin “should not be undercut by propping up” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose government is under investigation by the International Criminal Court for possible crimes against humanity committed against protesters in 2017.