Despite White House tensions with Saudi Arabia, Jared Kushner and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are scheduled to deliver lectures at a Saudi investment conference.
On October 25 and 26, the two men will talk at Future Investment Initiative panels in Riyadh.
Kushner will meet with former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to discuss ‘peace and prosperity,’ while Mnuchin will meet with representatives from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and India to discuss global macro-finances.
Mnuchin has attended the conference previously, including as Treasury Secretary under former President Donald Trump.
Nobody from Biden’s administration will be present at the event.
Despite escalating tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia, the two are attending the conference after Vice President Biden indicated he would reevaluate the countries’ relationship following the OPEC oil production cut.
Cutting oil output in the Middle East by 2 million barrels per day is certain to drive up petrol prices before the midterm elections and has prompted assertions that Saudi Arabia is ‘aligned’ with Russia.
Since the United States halted oil shipments from Russia and the European Union proceeded toward divestment, Moscow has instead sold its goods to Saudi Arabia for months. The Saudis reserve Russian oil for their own consumption and then sell their own oil on the international market.
After Biden fist-bumped Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in Jeddah in July, the Democrats have now vowed to be harsh with the country over the output decrease.
Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, also accused Saudi Arabia of wanting Russia to win the Ukraine war.
Do you believe Saudi Arabia desires a Russian victory in Ukraine? John Berman of CNN questioned him.
Yes…be let’s extremely forthright about this. Putin and Saudi Arabia are opposing the United States,’ he stated earlier this month.
Later, Kirby confirmed his views during a news briefing.
‘The president believes we should reassess our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia to determine if it serves our national security objectives, and he is willing to debate this with members of Congress,’ he said.
Menendez, who has veto authority over foreign arms sales as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement that he “will not approve any collaboration with Riyadh until the Kingdom reconsiders its posture towards the situation in Ukraine.”
In a tweet earlier this month, Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, stated that Saudi Arabia has “never been a trustworthy ally” and that the United States should “consider a world without their alliance.”
Energy ministers from the OPEC cartel, whose largest member is Saudi Arabia, and allied non-members including Russia convened last week for the first time since early 2020 at the group’s headquarters in Vienna.
They announced output cuts at the beginning of October, the greatest since the outbreak of COVID-19.
Biden traveled to the Middle East this summer and met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to discuss energy security and rising gas costs in the United States. To avoid a potentially awkward greeting with the leader, Biden instead fist-bumped bin Salman.
The statement increased the price of Russian crude oil to fund the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. It also thwarts Western efforts to stifle Moscow’s oil revenues.
The CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, took a veiled shot at Vice President Joe Biden when he stated that the United States should have been pumping more oil and gas for a long time.
The renowned billionaire chairman told CNBC on Monday, “America should have pumped more oil and gas, and it should have been subsidized.”
“America must assume a genuine leadership position.” The U.S., not Saudi Arabia, is the swing producer. We ought to have gotten this right beginning in March,’ he continued.
According to NBC News, Biden is reportedly considering asking American businesses to halt increasing their relations with Saudi Arabia.