Saudi Arabia Wary of What to Come Under Biden

Date: 07 November 2020 - 22:04

News ID: ۸۴۵۴۵

RIYADH (Sputnik) – As the battle over the United States presidency has dragged on, few countries have been unaffected by the continuing tug-of-war - and Saudi Arabia is definitely not one of them.
The prevalent mood is that Riyadh wants President Donald Trump to be re-elected and, given what he did for Saudi Arabia in his four years in office, that desire is understandable.
It was Trump who vetoed the congressional bid to halt arms sales to the Persian Gulf country.
Now that the Democrats are only one state away from the presidency, Washington’s pro-Saudi policies are subject to change, and Ahmed Al Ibrahim, a Riyadh-based political analyst, says his country will not sit idly by watching how the U.S. returns to President Obama’s foreign policy.
"America is our traditional ally and we will find a common ground with any administration but if Riyadh sees Washington reverting to its previous policies, relations with the U.S. will be cold.”
Saudis could never live in peace with Obama’s foreign policy. In 2011, with the eruption of the Arab Spring in Egypt, his administration supported the overthrow of the then-president, Hosni Mubarak - a staunch Saudi ally - and in doing so, gave a boost to the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement which is considered a terrorist organization by Riyadh.
Several years later, Obama backtracked from his red-line policy on Syria and refrained from striking targets of the Syrian government, an Iranian ally, which raised eyebrows in Riyadh; then he entered into a deal with Iran, allowing it to continue with its nuclear project and lifted sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Biden is expected to continue Obama’s line and might even halt other processes started by Trump such as the Persian Gulf’s normalization with the Zionist regime. But apart from a change in foreign policy, he might also take a different approach to the economy, something that can eventually harm Riyadh.
During his pre-election campaign, Biden has promised that the U.S. under his leadership would move away from dependency on oil and gas, opting for green energy.
Such a move would mean losses of $1bn for Saudi Arabia that supplies 7 percent of America’s oil needs, after Canada and Mexico.