Xinhua News Agency, Washington, July 19 (Xinhua) — Biden’s first trip to the Middle East since he took office as president of the United States came to an embarrassing conclusion. At the last stop in Saudi Arabia, Biden failed to obtain Saudi Arabia’s commitment to increase oil production, and was coldly received for the implementation of “values diplomacy”.
Analysts pointed out that before his visit, Biden made a high-profile claim that he would open a “new chapter” in the relationship between the United States and the Middle East, but the results were met one after another, which once again highlighted the obvious differences between the countries in the Middle East and the United States, which clings to hegemonic thinking.
Persuasion to increase oil production is not guaranteed
One of the important purposes of Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia and the “Security and Development” summit in Jeddah, the last stop of his trip to the Middle East, is to urge Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil-producing countries to increase production in order to lower international oil prices, ease domestic inflationary pressures in the United States, and help the United States midterm elections.
Biden said after a meeting with Saudi leaders that the kingdom has recognized the “urgency” of increasing oil production and expects “further action” in the coming weeks. But the Saudi side immediately poured cold water on him. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed was vague about the production increase in his speech at the Jeddah summit, saying that Saudi Arabia “has the ability” to increase its oil production capacity to an average of 13 million barrels a day, but it has no capacity to increase production for the time being.
Since then, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal also said in an interview with CNN that the kingdom could not “make any guarantees” about increasing oil production.
According to Ben Cahill, a senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States, as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned, on the one hand, it sees that cooperation within the OPEC+ framework and cooperation with Russia has effectively resisted fluctuations in the international oil market. Energy policy is “arbitrary and uncertain” and therefore does not want to be resigned to unilateral U.S. action.
The implementation of “values diplomacy” was coldly received
According to Saudi media reports, during Biden’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed, Mohammed took the US’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as examples, questioned the US’s practice of imposing its own values on others by force, and said that “Saudi Arabia does not welcome American values. diplomatic”. He also went through the “black history” of human rights in the United States – as far away as the US Abu Ghraib Prison abuse scandal, as recently as the US side favored Israel in the investigation into the shooting and death of a female reporter from Al Jazeera in Qatar in May this year.
In an interview with CNBC, Saudi Foreign Minister al-Jubeir also recounted the “mistakes” the United States has made on human rights issues, such as drone strikes in Afghanistan that killed civilians. Faisal, on the other hand, stressed to CNN that the United States should not apply “double standards” to itself and to Saudi Arabia on human rights issues.
There is little response to wanting to gang up
Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed greeted him with a fist bump in front of the palace. This scene sparked controversy in the United States. Some commentators have criticized Biden for arbitrarily “changing his face” in foreign policy for the sake of practical interests, and others have pointed out that it is hypocritical to deliberately show the closeness of the relationship between the two sides on the surface.
Ma Xiaolin, dean of the Institute of Circum-Mediterranean Studies at Zhejiang University of Foreign Languages, pointed out that the Biden administration has been in office for nearly a year and a half, and the visit to the Middle East is long overdue. No one believes that he attaches great importance to the Middle East. In addition, the relative strength of the United States has declined, its investment in the Middle East has decreased, and it has completely withdrawn after causing incidents in the Middle East many times, which has greatly reduced the trust of Middle Eastern countries in the United States.
Wang Guangyuan, an associate professor at the Middle East School of Beijing Language and Culture University, believes that the United States has used military strikes, human rights diplomacy and the so-called “color revolution” for many years to deliberately create confrontation in the Middle East, agitate the situation in the region, and even subvert the regimes of countries in the Middle East. Security dilemma, causing serious harm to the region. Today, the strategic mutual trust between regional countries and the United States continues to decrease, and Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries have continuously enhanced their strategic autonomy and capabilities, and are no longer willing to sacrifice their own development to serve the interests of the United States. (Reporters: Deng Xianlai, Hu Guan; Editing: Sun Shuo; Editors: Sun Hao, Wang Fengfeng, Ma Xiao, Indifferent)
Original title: Global Connection | Biden’s embarrassing ending to the Middle East
Responsible editor: Ji Xunzhen