President last fall Joe Bidenleft open the possibility of “punishing” her Saudi Arabia for the decision to cut oil production amid high energy prices.

Officially, the Saudi Arabian government defended its actions through diplomatic channels. However, in private, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has threatened to radically change US-Saudi relations.

According to a classified document obtained by the Washington Post, the crown prince said that “will cause significant economic damage to the United States” if they retaliate against the cuts in oil production..

Bin Salman is reported to have said he “wants nothing more to do with the US government,” the document said, foreshadowing “significant financial implications for Washington.”

Eight months later, Joe Biden has not “answered” the Arab country, and Mohammed bin Salman continues to negotiate with top US officials, as he did this week with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah.

Whether the prince’s threat was passed on to US officials or leaked through wiretapping is unclear, but it most emphatically exposes tensions in a relationship long based on a quid pro quo logic.

Although the US intelligence document was posted on the messaging platform Discord, a spokesman for the National Security Council stated that “we don’t know anything about it.”

A second US intelligence document, leaked in December, warned that Saudi Arabia planned to expand its relationship with China by purchasing drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and mass surveillance systems from Beijing. But US officials say those warnings were exaggerated and unverified.

Bin Salman, 37, is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia after his father, King Salman, appointed him prime minister in 2022.

Before his election, Biden said Saudi Arabia should be treated like a rogue state over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Upon taking office, the Democratic president released a US intelligence report in February 2021 that directly accused Salman Jr. of the assassination. At the time, Washington was talking about “revisiting” relations with its favored partner in the Persian Gulf, turning the page in close cooperation under the chairmanship of Donald Trump, but without a break.

Those close to Biden explained that from now on, the American president is going to negotiate only with King Salman, and not with the prince, the privileged interlocutor of his Republican predecessor.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia is trying to present itself as a global player, not tied to the “carriage” of Washington. In recent months, Riyadh agreed to end hostilities in Yemen, mend ties with nemesis Iran, invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the Arab League a decade later, and ended a regional dispute with Qatar.

“Riyadh is returning to a more traditional foreign policy that avoids conflict and prefers reconciliation with adversaries,” said Bruce Reidel, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution.

Changes in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy are coming as Washington turns to it for help on some regional issues. A few days before the arrival of Secretary of State A. Blinken, Saudi Arabia announced that it would continue to cut oil production in July, which is opposed by the Biden administration.

Normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel seems to be the most difficult, given that Israeli-Palestinian relations have deteriorated under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.

“Biden set himself the task of achieving public recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia. This is unlikely without major progress on the Palestinian front,” Reidel said.

Some actions by the Saudi government have pleased US officials, such as the aid to Ukraine announced during the foreign minister’s visit to Kiev in February and his plans for a large order for Boeing aircraft.

Source: Washington Post.