The President of the U.S, Joe Biden, is likely to visit Saudi Arabia at the end of this month. This meeting is a part of an international trip for NATO and a group of Seven meetings.
Traveling to Saudi Arabia would mean that Biden would meet its ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. He’s been blamed by the US president for the 2018 murder of a US-based columnist in the Kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.
People familiar with the subject, who asked not to be identified since Biden’s travel plans haven’t been confirmed yet, said only that a Saudi Arabia trip was likely, without securing a meeting with the crown prince.
The president is likely to attend a NATO summit in Madrid and a G-7 meeting in Munich at the end of the month.
Initially, in Biden’s presidency, the White House said he would deal directly with King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia’s head of state. He regulates levers of power in the kingdom.
However, pressure has increased on Biden to relent to a meeting with Bin Salman since US gasoline proves have surged to record highs during his presidency. Instead, he has threatened federal price-gouging probes and ordered a record release of oil from US reserves to reduce prices at gasoline pumps to little effect.
Saudi Arabia argued that the energy crunch could worsen later this year and believed it needed to keep spare production capacity in reserve. The Biden administration said that world demand for crude is rebounding far swifter than speculated post the COVID-19 pandemic.