Joe Biden greeted the Saudi prince considered responsible for the assassination of a dissident journalist, in the hopes of lowering gas prices ahead of US elections.
US president Joe Biden completed a dramatic turnaround by delivering a friendly greeting to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The hotly anticipated fist-bump came after Biden, who promised to make Saudi Arabia “pay the price” for human rights abuses, released a CIA intelligence report as soon as he took office which directly blamed the prince for killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“And make them, in fact, the pariah that they are,” Biden said before taking office, adding there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia.”
But the president found redeeming value in Saudi reserves of oil as the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia inflated the cost of energy to record levels, which threaten his Democratic Party’s chances in November midterm elections.
The fist bump, previewed by the White House as a way to avoid Covid but seen as a compromise to a more chummy handshake, was beamed across state television in Saudi Arabia.
Station Al-Ekhbariya showed Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto leader known as MBS, escorting Biden into Jeddah’s Al-Salam palace.
The highly symbolic meeting, sitting across from Prince Mohammed and King Salman, for a “working session” as Washington pressed the world’s largest exporter of crude oil to produce more barrels to counter soaring petrol prices.
Read the article by Justin Vallejo in The Daily Telegraph.