(PresidentialWire.com)- Ahead of President Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia last Friday, China’s state-run newspaper Global Times was busy mocking old Joe for having to go “cap in hand” to beg for oil.
In an editorial last Wednesday, the Global Times quoted “experts” who expressed amusement at the American president trying to woo Arab states while simultaneously seeking to revive the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran.
The propaganda outlet, citing an “expert” named Cui, described the dilemma facing the United States as whether the US should lift sanctions on Iranian oil and anger its traditional allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, or if it should continue to build “an anti-Iran alliance” and risk more pain from an energy crisis.
Yin Gang, a research fellow from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Global Times that Biden’s trip to the Middle East is going “cap in hand to OPEC members” begging for increased oil output to bring down prices.
Yin suggested that the president would also try to ease sanctions on Iran to increase the supply of oil in the global markets.
When he was in Europe for the G7 Summit last month, President Biden told reporters that he was not going to discuss increasing oil production with the Saudis when he visited them.
But in his press conference in Saudi Arabia last Friday, Biden claimed that the Saudis shared his “urgency” over boosting the oil supply and said he expected the kingdom to begin taking “further steps in the coming weeks.”
After Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud said the issue of OPEC+ increasing oil supply wasn’t even raised during last Friday’s summit between the Biden administration and Arab leaders, the markets responded and not in a good way as the price of oil surged to over $100 a barrel on Monday.
Market analyst Naeem Aslam told the UK Guardian that the message traders got from Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia is that OPEC+ will be making the decision on oil supply and the oil cartel isn’t “remotely interested in what Biden is trying to achieve.”
