Biden’s Saudi Reset

It is a famous phrase within the study of geopolitics that “when it comes to the business of international relations, there are only permanent interests and no permanent friendships”. US President Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia is a reminder of the primacy of these interests over the waxing and waning of individuals who may lead a country at a time.

The narrative is a simple one. Biden predictably campaigned for the Presidency as the ‘anti-Trump’ and looked to set himself at the other end of the policy scale to his predecessor. Trump attempted to kill the Iran deal and saw Saudi-US relations as a priority, the Kingdom saw his first ever visit abroad. In 2018 Trump’s White House released a statement on “"Standing with Saudi Arabia" which spoke to the $450 billion that Saudi had agreed to invest in the US.

Biden has looked to restore the Iran deal and in incredible bombastic terms threatened to turn Saudi Arabia into a ‘pariah’, which must have Riyadh nervous as well as angry to what the new President intended. Yet whilst relations between the US and Saudi have cooled since Biden’s election, especially around issues of arms sales, the President’s visit this month is likely an attempt at a corrective towards a more traditional close alliance.

Indeed, the two countries have been allies for almost a hundred years although there deeper strategic partnership can be traced back to 1945. It has been an enduring relationship as a well as one that receives in the large bipartisan support, which is an increasingly rare phenomenon in Washington.

That Saudi Arabia is the world’s second biggest producer of oil at a time of a global energy crisis has surely focused the minds of Biden and his foreign policy team. There was even an attempt by Washington to see if a new relationship with Venezuela could be found to open more oil supplies in light of the sanctions arrayed against Russia following their invasion of Ukraine.

The headlines around this week’s trip to Saudi Arabia capture relations “on the mend” or a “return to realism”. The United States and Saudi Arabia agreed on the importance of stopping Iran from "acquiring a nuclear weapon", during the visit according to a joint statement carried by the Saudi state news agency (SPA) The rapprochement was hugely helped by the continuing truce in Yemen

Meanwhile, the image of President Biden fist pumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will be the single moment captured by history from the visit. This simple human gesture would have likely taken months to choreography between diplomats from either country but may reverberate into the months and years ahead. It formed the pinnacle below which the agreed joint statement lived in which the US was unequivocal in supporting “Saudi Arabia’s security and territorial defense, and facilitating the Kingdom’s ability to obtain necessary capabilities to defend its people and territory against external threats”.

Less notice in coverage of a summit that was focused on Biden’s meetings with the Saudi leaderships, was the U.S.-brokered deal between Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia under which a small U.S.-led international peacekeeping contingent would quit the strategic island of Tiran, control of which was ceded to Riyadh by Cairo in 2017.

Now all eyes are on the August 3 OPEC+ meeting and weather the alliance will increase output and help ease the energy and inflationary crises that many parts of the world are enduring. Current inflation in the US is the highest in 40 -years, yet rather than any immediate decision coming out of the Biden summit, if the Saudis and the UAE want to raise output, they will do it via OPEC+. Yet at the summit the United States and Saudi Arabia did express their commitment to ensuring the stability of global energy markets. The two countries agreed to consult regularly on global energy markets in the short and long term and work together as strategic partners in climate and energy transition.

In the post invasion of Ukraine world, the balance of global power into a sharper focus between the US alliance, the Russia/China alliance and those who seek to be allies of both has changed the priorities and intentions of many world leaders. Yet it is crucial to remember that Biden’s Saudi reset is back to the historic norm, not away from it.