JOE BIDEN: FOREIGN POLICY FOR POLITICAL GAIN. It’s obvious that a midterm election loss can be devastating for President Joe Biden. Even when Republicans only win control of the House of Representatives, whatever stays of a Biden legislative agenda, if there may be such a thing, will probably be immediately dead. If the GOP also wins control of the Senate, even narrowly, Biden’s ability to win confirmation for his judicial and other nominees will probably be greatly diminished. So while the president and the leaders of the Democratic Party want to seem cool and assured in regards to the elections, there may be greater than a little bit desperation behind the scenes.
That is the backdrop to the Biden White House’s dealings with Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations. The president is offended on the Saudis for cutting production, which can raise politically sensitive gas prices and thus hurt Democratic possibilities in the ultimate weeks before the midterm elections. And now we learn the administration pushed the Saudis to postpone their decision for a month — just long enough in order that it will have little or no effect on the elections. And now that the Saudis have refused, Biden and other Democrats are talking about punishing Saudi Arabia.
Should the president’s domestic political needs dictate the nation’s foreign policy? In an excellent world, no. But that appears to be what is occurring here. Consider Biden’s situation:
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The president is beholden to a climate-obsessed environmental constituency that wields quite a lot of clout within the Democratic Party. Its goal is to eliminate the usage of fossil fuels in america. Democratic environmental activists want people driving electric cars or taking electric mass transit and using renewable energy of their homes and workplaces. If that change doesn’t occur naturally and quickly — and it’ll not — the activists need to force people to make use of latest sources of energy by making fossil fuels so expensive that the general public will see little alternative but to purchase a latest, and heavily subsidized, electric vehicle.
Within the meantime, the environmental lobby doesn’t want the U.S. to be energy independent if that independence is won by producing more oil and gas. The issue, after all, is that the country runs on oil and gas. That has forced the Biden administration to beg foreign sources to provide more so the U.S. should purchase more. It’s crazy, but that’s the political reality in Washington today.
To cite one example of how bizarre the situation is: You likely have seen reports of growing sales of subsidized electric cars. But here is the thing. Based on a recent survey in Automobile & Driver, there are about 250 million cars, SUVs, and light-duty trucks on the road within the U.S. today. About 1% of them are electric. It doesn’t take a math genius to notice that about 99% of those vehicles usually are not electric. The wonderful clean energy future continues to be a ways off when 99% of U.S. vehicles are running on gasoline.
And that makes the value of gas a volatile political issue. Biden “got here into office with essentially the most ambitious climate change agenda of any president in history,” wrote the Latest York Times. For instance, Biden campaigned on a pledge to finish oil and gas drilling on federal lands. When he moved into the White House, he immediately issued an executive order banning oil and gas leasing on public land, although he later backed off somewhat. He promised way more motion. Not too way back, he finally passed an enormous climate bill misleading named the Inflation Reduction Act.
From the beginning, Biden’s policies, and the prospect of future motion, began to push up the value of gas. The common price of a gallon of all grades went from $2.42 in January 2021 to $3.61 in February 2022, in response to figures compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine. The value of gas shot up further, to $5.03 a gallon in June. All the time trying to point a finger elsewhere, Biden blamed it on what he called “Putin’s Price Hike.” But the actual fact is, the value of gas had been rising dramatically before the Ukraine war began. Biden’s actions weren’t the one factor involved in price increases, but his environmental agenda, combined with massive spending passed by Democrats in Congress, was definitely a part of it.
Gas prices declined some within the late summer, but now they seem like poised to rise again. That is where the Saudis are available. On Oct. 5, OPEC+, the oil-producing cartel led by Saudi Arabia that also includes Russia, announced that it’ll cut production by 2 million barrels per day. That will certainly send the value of gas higher. The president was very unhappy.
Now, we learn that the Biden administration made an “urgent appeal” to the Saudis within the run-up to the OPEC production announcement. Based on the Wall Street Journal, the administration asked the Saudis to delay for a month the choice to chop production. Only a month, that is all we want, Biden officials said.
It was greater than only a request. The administration warned the Saudis that bad things would occur if Riyadh went ahead with the announcement of production cuts as planned in October. From the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. officials warned Saudi leaders that a cut can be viewed as a transparent alternative by Riyadh to side with Russia within the Ukraine war and that the move would weaken already-waning support in Washington for the dominion.” The Wall Street Journal continued: “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.”
“Holding off on the cuts would have likely delayed any rise in gas prices until after the elections,” reported the Associated Press. Nevertheless, the Biden administration denied that it had any political motive. Who, us? Political?
OPEC defied Biden and went ahead with the Oct. 5 announcement. Despite the administration’s denial of a political motive, the actual fact stays: Had the Saudis done what Biden wanted, there would have been little or no effect on gas prices before Election Day. That may have been a political reprieve for Democrats.
But now, the announcement has been made, and production cuts are in effect. And Biden and Democrats are threatening to punish Saudi Arabia. “There will probably be consequences,” said Biden. And what might those consequences be? Firstly, apparently, is cutting off U.S. military aid to the Saudis.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) “promised to make use of his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to dam any future arms sales to the Saudis,” reported the Associated Press. Also, “Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Ro Khanna of California introduced laws that will immediately pause all U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia for one yr,” the Associated Press continued. “This pause would also halt sales of spare and repair parts, support services and logistical support.”
So there may be a price to be paid for ignoring an urgent preelection entreaty from the president of america. Which raises a matter. In 2019, Democrats impeached then-President Donald Trump for withholding U.S. military aid for Ukraine with a purpose to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing a corruption investigation of the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine. On the time, after all, Joe Biden was Trump’s political rival. Democrats called the episode an abuse of presidential power.
What Biden is doing today with the Saudis will not be the identical. No two episodes ever are. But there are some similarities, they usually usually are not favorable to Joe Biden.
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