Saudi Arabia is preparing for a tougher relationship with the incoming Biden administration after four years in it President Trump
Donald Trump Hotel Trump in DC raises room rates for Biden inauguration GOP lawmaker criticizes Trump and colleagues for “trying to discredit” election Video shows long lines on last day of early voting in Georgia MORE it gave a direct line to the Oval Office and offered support even when some of its policies and actions generated controversy and bipartisan contempt.
The Trump-Saudi relationship was a constant source of tension between the White House and many Republicans in Congress, who were upset by the Kingdom’s involvement in the assassination of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and by support. unbridled from the White House to the Saudi war effort in Yemen. These actions also drew strong criticism from Democrats.
President-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenBidens pays tribute to front-line workers in New York: “We owe them, we owe them, we owe them” DC’s Trump Hotel raises room prices for Biden’s inauguration The video shows long lines on the last day of early voting in Georgia MORE he has called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” and has promised a strong hand in relations with the country, especially in the face of Riyadh for its human rights abuses.
The Trump years were in a way a golden period for the Saudis, as the Republican Party administration abruptly pivoted the United States toward Riyadh by pulling the United States out of Iran’s nuclear deal. The administration’s aggressive anti-Iran policies also sparked a military strike that killed the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Saudi Arabia, which saw the Obama administration’s negotiations with Tehran as an unwanted opening, expects a more strained relationship with Biden’s team. It is already working to calm the turbulent waters between Washington and Riyadh, with the expected release of a prominent women’s rights activist and a possible approach to its blockade in Qatar, which is home to one of the central commands in the United States. at Al Udeid Air Base.
“They have no friends here,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which has advised both Republican and Democratic administrations on U.S. policy in the Middle East. “Congress is hostile, the Trump administration is coming out, the Biden administration has made it clear what their views are.”
Saudi Arabia is expected to release prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Haltoul in March.
Arrested in 2018 on terrorism charges, al-Haltoul was sentenced on Monday to nearly six years in prison on charges that human rights groups criticize as politically motivated. But the terms of his sentence leave open the possibility of early release.
“I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” said Hussain Ibish, a senior academic at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan
Jake Sullivan: Biden’s frustration grows over Trump’s lack of cooperation in transition The incoming National Security Adviser: The Pentagon has not granted a meeting with Biden’s transition team since Dec. 18. he tweeted that the sentence was “unfair and worrying” and that “the Biden-Harris administration will defend human rights violations wherever they occur.”
Saudi Arabia is also taking steps to resolve its four-year blockade on Qatar, which arose out of Riyadh’s frustration over Doha’s relations with Tehran.
Saudi King Salman on Wednesday informed the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, at the January 5 meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council at what was seen as an effort to begin resolving the dispute.
“I think it’s something the Biden administration would really like,” Ibish said. “I don’t think they want to inherit the boycott in Qatar.”
Saudis are skeptical that the Biden administration is Obama 2.0, with many of the same faces of the former Democratic administration returning to various roles.
This includes Sullivan, who was the main negotiator in the initial talks that led to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, and Anthony Blink
Antony Blinken: Biden’s choice to lead the American intelligence community Mnuchin says he has spoken with Yellen, Biden’s Treasury candidate. Next steps for foreign policy MORE, Biden’s candidate for secretary of state. Blinken was Biden’s national security adviser when he was vice president and was deputy secretary of state between 2015 and 2017.
Blinken, in particular, is seen as part of a younger generation of foreign policy advisers who were part of the Obama administration and supported former President Obama’s push for democratic change in the Middle East. .
And while Biden has said he will “re-evaluate” the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, he has noted that he seeks more to restore balance on the world stage rather than take on a revolutionary change in policy.
Biden’s transition team said it was not in a place to comment beyond what the president-elect said about the campaign track and noted his previous comments on the relationship with the United States and Arabia. Saudi Arabia.
Biden issued a statement in October on the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s assassination, saying the Biden-Harris administration would re-evaluate the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and end Washington’s support for the war. led by the Saudis in Yemen. He also expressed support for Saudi activists, dissidents and journalists, and said the US will not “check its values at the door to sell weapons or buy oil.”
Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy, said a new assessment is needed to counter the culture of impunity that Saudi Arabia operated under the Trump administration while reflecting a changed world.
“Changes in global energy markets make Saudi Arabia’s role in world oil prices less dominant than it was before,” he said.
“But relationships can’t be taken for granted in general and I think that’s true here,” he added.
This includes reports of the Saudi government attempting to kidnap one of its critics on U.S. soil and FBI assessments that the Kingdom uses its diplomatic facilities to help Saudi citizens flee U.S. legal proceedings. . In November 2019, two former Twitter employees and a Saudi citizen were charged by the Justice Department with acting as illegal agents of a foreign government.
“This desire for reassessment may be triggered by some of the very worrying Saudi behaviors we’ve seen in recent years, but it’s also driven by these trends that really can’t be ignored,” said Wittes, who served as deputy secretary general. of State for Middle East Affairs in the Obama administration.
Riyadh maintains a key negotiation with the Biden administration over whether to open relations with Israel, following the Trump administration’s mediation of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
While Saudi Arabia has maintained silent security ties with Israel in the face of Iran and has taken small steps to soften relations, such as opening airspace to Israeli commercial flights, it has so far remained fully opened by Saudi King Salman’s commitment to the Palestinians.
“If and when – I suspect it’s a matter of when – the Saudis decide to take another step towards normalization with Israel, they will see … this as a way to boost their very low relationship with what they envisage is a Biden administration entering, ”Miller said of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is seen as a tense but necessary alliance, based on shared goals over shared values, Ibish of the Arab Gulf States Institute said.
This includes the US needing relations with Saudi Arabia as part of broader alliances to counter China’s global ambitions, destabilize Russia’s activities and maintain stability in the Middle East.
Riyadh, for its part, needs the security provided by the US as a world power to ensure its own national integrity.
“For the U.S., it’s really global politics at its highest level,” Ibish said. “The two countries are stuck together.”