WASHINGTON (Anadolu/ The Guardian) – U.S. President, Joe Biden, is likely to tap the brakes on any new arms sales to Saudi Arabia, amid an ongoing row with the kingdom over oil production cuts, a key senator says.
“I think you’ll see both the administration and the Senate take action, and one of the most likely actions is to stop any future arms sales,” Sen. Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriations Committees, told CNN during a televised interview.
The comments come as the Biden administration and congressional Democrats continue to escalate their war of words with Riyadh after Saudi Arabia backed a 2 million barrel per day production cut.
Biden has said his administration would undertake a review of the bilateral relationship, as his senior officials have warned they are examining which consequences to impose.
The White House charged, on Thursday, that not only did Saudi officials lend their support to the measure, but worked behind the scenes as OPEC+’s Chair to pressure other member states to vote in favor of the proposal.
The decision to reduce oil production has spiked oil prices and is tantamount to “moral and military support” for Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, maintained.
Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill suggested transferring U.S. weapons systems in Saudi Arabia to Ukraine and suspending a planned transfer of Patriot missiles to Riyadh in the wake of what they call a “turning point” in Washington’s relationship with the kingdom.
Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California who is a leading supporter of a weapons freeze, said he believed that “at the very least” Congress would move to halt the transfer of Patriot missiles to the kingdom, and probably pause other defense initiatives, the Guardian reported.
Khanna is a longtime critic of Saudi Arabia and was one of the original sponsors of a 2019 measure that received bipartisan support and would have forced the U.S. to end military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. That resolution was vetoed by then president Donald Trump.
In an interview with the Guardian, Khanna said tensions had reached a boiling point that was comparable to U.S. sentiment following the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.