Saudi’s are making Americans hurt at the gas pumps to help Trump/MAGA candidates in mid-terms
According to Ken Klippenstein at The Intercept, rising gas prices in the U.S., less than a month from the Mid-Term Elections, are likely a direct result of Saudi Arabia interfering on behalf of former President Donald Trump and his allies – an “October surprise” aimed at making Americans feel burdened at the gas pump and unhappy with Democratic control of the government.
via Twitter
Klippenstein explains that “Saudi Arabia announced it would be slashing oil production by 2 million barrels a day,” and that as a result, White House officials called it a “hostile act” and said the administration was “re-evaluating” the Saudi relationship, explaining that “It was the kind of bellicose language officialdom virtually never uses to describe the oil-rich monarchy, whose vast wealth has bought it enormous influence in Washington.” He further notes that “there’s no doubt that the Saudi-led OPEC oil production cuts are a strategic effort to hurt Americans at the pump.”
Klippenstein continues:
“Yet experts pointed to the price hikes as more than a geopolitical move. They said it was also a foray by Saudi’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, into U.S. electoral politics: a move by the Saudi-dominated oil cartel OPEC against President Joe Biden and in favor of Donald Trump.
The Saudis are working to get Trump re-elected and for the MAGA Republicans to win the midterms,’ Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, told The Intercept. ‘Higher oil prices will undermine the Democrats.’
Oil prices affect not just the price at the pump but also the cost of virtually everything in our fossil fuel-dependent economy — and are a major driver of inflation. ‘There’s no doubt that the Saudi-led OPEC oil production cuts are a strategic effort to hurt Americans at the pump and undermine our work to tackle rising costs,’ said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., in an email.”
Trump admin visits with Saudi leaders via Flickr / Trump White House Archived https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
Trump and MBS have long had a bro-mance brewing, since Trump broke with tradition by paying his first foreign visit to Saudi Arabia’s capital and brokered a record $350 billion weapons sale to the country. He also repeatedly defended MBS from reporting accusing him and his regime of the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying “I saved his ass. I was able to get Congress to leave him alone” — referring to mulitple times he vetoed congress in blocking billions in weapons sales to the Saudis. The “cozy relationship” has continued since Trump left office as well.
Now, as Klippenstein explains, “experts suggest that MBS’s oil production cut is a targeted attempt to hurt the Democrats’ electoral prospects.”
He cites Trita Parsi, executive VP of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who said that the rising gas prices are “MBS’s October surprise…This is his election interference. It forces Biden to make a choice: Will he protect America’s democracy and Democratic lawmakers in Congress, or will he triple down on a flawed gamble that says that the U.S. has no choice but to acquiesce to Saudi Arabia to prevent Riyadh from aligning with Russia?”
“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Klippenstein concludes by saying that “In many ways, MBS’s decision to tamp down oil production is a rebuke to Biden’s controversial meeting with the crown prince in Jeddah this summer in which the two shared a fist bump. The meeting — following secret backchanneling with Riyadh by CIA Director William Burns, in which oil was discussed — flew in the face of Biden’s campaign promise to make Saudi Arabia a ‘pariah.’”
