President Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia illustrated why the United States needs to be energy independent. We have the resources, so let’s open them up and move on from our close dependency on foreign oil.
Real Clear Politics described the trip this way-
“President Biden’s return from Saudi Arabia with a nearly empty gas can underscores what we already knew: This administration’s energy policy is not only flailing, but incoherent.”
The Wall Street Journal was tougher. They wrote,
“In short, the president walked away with no progress—not only on oil, but on peace in Yemen, confronting Iran and everything else. That failure was compounded by the risible way the White House handled the visit. The White House staffer who thought a banal buddy-to-buddy fist bump was preferable to a customary formal handshake should be fired. It had nothing to do with Covid; the president shook hands with other Saudis and also, earlier, with Israelis and Palestinians. If he thought that forgoing a handshake would appease anti-Saudi critics in his own party, he was wrong.“
For several years Biden has called Saudi’s Crowd Prince responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Here’s a statement from Biden’s campaign in 2020, still available online,-
“Jamal Khashoggi and his loved ones deserve accountability. Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil. America’s commitment to democratic values and human rights will be a priority, even with our closest security partners. I will defend the right of activists, political dissidents, and journalists around the world to speak their minds freely without fear of persecution and violence. Jamal’s death will not be in vain, and we owe it to his memory to fight for a more just and free world.”
You don’t really fist bump the guy responsible after that kind of rhetoric. Derek Grossman, a foreign policy analysist, tweeted-
An energy independent United States would not need to travel to Saudi Arabia to ask for more oil, and if we were energy independent, then Biden would have leverage to actually deliver on his tough campaign talk.
The optics of Biden’s trip are terrible, and the results are just as bad. Biden can’t handle another term and we can’t afford another.
