Report: Biden Tried to Persuade Saudis to Delay Production Cut

A report in today’s Wall Street Journal depicts Joe Biden’s Keystone Kops administration in action:

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 answer: a resounding no.
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Saudi officials dismissed the requests, which they viewed as a political gambit by the Biden administration to avoid bad news ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, on which control of Congress hangs.

The Biden administration denies that its urgent request was politically motivated:

Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, rejected Saudi contentions that the Biden administration efforts were driven by political calculations. …

“It’s categorically false to connect this to U.S. elections,” Ms. Watson said. “It’s about the impact of this shortsighted decision to the global economy.”

But the political implications of the administration’s request are obvious:

The one-month delay requested by Washington would have meant a production cut made in the days before the election, too late to have much effect on consumers’ wallets ahead of the vote.

This is beyond lame. It is pathetic:

Since the OPEC+ decision, the White House vowed to fight OPEC’s control of the energy market.

The obvious way to “fight OPEC’s control of the energy market” is by producing all the oil and gas we can. It was obvious to Donald Trump, anyway. It is hard to believe that Biden and his advisers are actually this dim.

Instead of responding rationally by maximizing our own production, the Biden administration wants to “punish” Saudi Arabia:

Lawmakers from across the political spectrum called on the U.S. to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia. And U.S. officials started looking for ways to punish Riyadh.

The administration piles stupidity on top of stupidity. I suppose if he really gets desperate, Biden can denounce Saudi Arabia as a “pariah state.” Oh, wait, he already did that. Weird that the Saudis weren’t interested in doing Biden any political favors.

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