Lower Russian oil supply, declining U.S. refining capacity, slower oil production post-pandemic — these are a number of factors causing today’s high U.S. oil and gas prices. President Joe Biden is hoping Saudi Arabia can help push prices down by asking its Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to increase his country’s oil production. Straight Arrow News contributor Larry Lindsey argues that Biden, politically speaking, has to do something about oil, but any offering from the Crown Prince will be minimal:
There’s an old saying about Mohammed and the mountain. In this version of it, it goes, if Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, then the mountain will have to go to Mohammed. Now, it turns out Mohammed in this phrasing is actually Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and the guy who actually runs things. The mountain, of course, is going to be President Biden.
Biden himself doesn’t like MBS one little bit. During his campaign for the presidency, he called Saudi Arabia “a pariah state.” He, upon taking office, cut off arms sales, did not side with the Saudis against Iran in a proxy war they were having, and actually began to tilt toward Iran — Saudi’s main enemy in the region.
Well, you know why he was going to go? The President wants more oil.
Well, neither the Saudis nor the other place he was going to visit — Israel — were particularly happy with President Biden and so they made sure the photo op wasn’t going to be worth very much.
The President has to do something about oil prices politically, or so it is said, but instead he is now focused on a single new green energy initiative — trying to build more windmills — which isn’t going to do anything for the short term oil crisis, and won’t even come on stream for many, many years.
So either the President is going to have to reverse his domestic war on oil, or he’s going to have to go to the only country that will have any spare capacity left at all. In other words, the mountain eventually is going to have to go to Mohammed.