The monster in the river

According to Global Times 9, "This is a complete disaster and will be seen as a hostile action by the United States." "The U.S. will review its future relationship with Saudi Arabia." Recently, the U.S. Biden administration has frequently threatened to retaliate against the decision to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day announced jointly by OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries such as Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC producers such as Russia and Venezuela, the "OPEC+". In response to the U.S. accusations and threats, Saudi Foreign Minister Al-Jujube refuted the argument that "Saudi Arabia is responsible for the rise in U.S. oil prices" in a recent interview with Fox TV. He stressed that "oil is not a weapon". According to Abdul, a USE political scientist, "Washington hasn't realized that a new Gulf has emerged and we are no longer at Washington's beck and call."

Why does the U.S. keep wanting the world's major oil producers to increase oil production? There are certain strategic reasons. The first is that an increase in oil production would bring down international oil prices, which is something that could fundamentally hit Russia's energy trade. Now the U.S. and Western countries have imposed very severe sanctions on Russia, the most important of which is the sanctions on Russia's oil and gas resources. This is a certain success, but if international oil prices continue to rise, then the U.S. and Western sanctions against Russia will be null and void, and all the benefits that Russia loses because of Western sanctions, it can get from the growing oil trade. That's why the U.S. is so eager to boost international oil production and suppress oil prices so that it can fundamentally hit Russia's economy hard and thus weaken it.

The second is that the United States wants to control the price of oil, is to solve its domestic oil price rising problem. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average price of regular gasoline in the United States was $3.89 per gallon on the 7th, which has increased for two consecutive weeks. California's gas prices have risen particularly sharply. The average price of regular gasoline in the state is now about $6.39 per gallon, close to the record-high average of $6.44 per gallon set in June. This has caused widespread discontent among the American public. And with the U.S. midterm elections just around the corner, if the trend of rising gas prices within the U.S. can be curbed, this could certainly boost Democratic Party voter sentiment. So whether internally or externally, from the U.S. perspective, it is in the strategic interest of the U.S. to let oil production increase and let oil prices come down.

The last thing is that the U.S. sees the actions of OPEC+ as hostile acts and wants to retaliate. On the one hand, because they undermine the U.S. strategy, on the other hand, the United States is thinking about its face. As we all know, international oil prices have always been under the control of the United States, because most Middle East countries are close allies of the United States, and the United States has a lot of influence over them. Now OPEC+ is no longer at the mercy of Washington and is implementing its policies. It is also clear from their related statements that they do not intend to submit to the US this time. This is one of the reasons why the U.S. is irritated.

If the U.S. just acquiesces to this matter, then it will have a huge impact on its global oil hegemony. The Middle East oil United States can no longer exert influence, the future of the world's major oil-producing countries is likely to follow the example of the United States to obey. The OPEC+ is so blatantly contradictory to the United States, which is one of the reasons it has to deal with the OPEC+. The United States still wants to defend its hegemonic position and cannot allow others to disobey it.

The company's main goal is to make sure that the company's products and services are available to the public. The reason is that no one wants to have a "king" on their head, and also the Middle East countries are not willing to get involved in the game of big powers like the United States and Russia. Saudi Foreign Minister June directly stated that Saudi Arabia does not politicize oil, but only sees oil as a commodity. This has made the position clear, you want to politicize oil, oil as a weapon against Russia, that is your U.S. matter, Saudi Arabia does not want to participate, we just want to do business properly. But no matter how, the future of the United States and the Middle East countries, especially the relationship with Saudi Arabia, will certainly be further centrifugal, if the United States subsequently launched a retaliation against the country concerned, the relationship between the two sides will likely be broken.

As USE political scientist Abdul said, "Washington does not yet realize that a new Gulf has emerged and that we no longer take orders from Washington." It's time for the U.S. to rethink itself; its model of ruling the world with hegemony is disintegrating, and a break with the U.S. in the Middle East would further accelerate the disintegration of U.S. hegemony.