Antony J. Blinken, the Secretary of State of the United States, concluded his visit to Saudi Arabia to rebuild ties that have been damaged since last fall because of Saudi officials cutting oil production. During his visit, Blinken and Saudi officials discussed several issues, including regional infrastructure, clean energy, Iran, Sudan, the Islamic State, and the potential normalization of Saudi-Israel relations. The visit is the most obvious effort yet by the Biden administration to move past the hostility that President Biden expressed towards Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his government last fall. Analysts and officials suggest that Washington cannot afford to alienate powerful partners if it intends to compete with China and Russia across the globe. Prince Mohammed, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, is leveraging his country’s position at the nexus of superpower competition and Middle East security and is open to being courted by all parties. Prince Mohammed is using the kingdom’s position to establish strong ties with China, which has been the main issue for the Biden administration. Even though senior US officials want to ensure that Saudi Arabia maintains its distance from China and Russia, they have argued that it is essential to have strong ties because of traditional reasons like balancing against Iran, fighting terrorists, and selling US-made weapons. However, human rights activists are concerned that the Biden administration’s actual relationship and actions with Saudi Arabia are similar to those of the Trump administration. Many US lawmakers, especially Democrats, are keeping holds on sales of some weapons to the kingdom and want to track Prince Mohammed’s demands from the United States in return for normalization with Israel. Prince Mohammed has asked Washington to help develop a civilian nuclear program with uranium enrichment, which alarmed some US officials and arms control experts.
