President Joe Biden is draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep gas prices low solely because he wants to mitigate voter wrath against the Democrats. This comes as OPEC cuts back production by 2 million barrels a day. That will drive up costs, drive up the repurchase cost for the petroleum reserve and increase our national debt, which has now shot above $31 trillion with interest rates rising and debt service payments rising.
Biden has created this mess in large part because he is subservient to rogue regimes and puts their needs ahead of Americans. The outcome will be an emboldened China and a national security headache for the United States.
One of the reasons OPEC is going to cut production is because the majority of the Arab nations involved in OPEC are furious with Biden trying to cut a deal with Iran. Biden stopped considering the Houthi terrorists, funded by Iran, to be terrorists, and the Houthi then escalated attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
In advancing Iran's interests at the peace table, Biden risks further destabilization in the Middle East in large part because no one really believes Iran will stop until it has a nuclear weapon. Iran is no friend of most of its Middle Eastern neighbors and wants to be the dominant power in the Middle East over and against Saudi Arabia. This has alienated him from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others as China and Russia seek to ingratiate themselves with our longtime allies.
Biden has also been highly antagonistic to Saudi Arabia. He insisted he would not meet with the de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, then had to go grovel to Salman for more oil. Now, despite the groveling to his face, Salman has responded to Biden's knives in Salman's back by leading OPEC to its production reduction.
Biden's team and congressional Democrats decided to threaten both OPEC and Saudi Arabia. Biden is signaling he's now OK with Congress pushing legislation that would purport to make OPEC legally liable for price collusion. Good luck with that when OPEC stops sending the United States oil. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wants a wholesale revision of our relationship with the Saudis. Doing either will make the Carter years look downright utopian.
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Unfortunately, the Biden response further enables rogue regimes. First, The Wall Street Journal reports Biden is going to ease sanctions on Venezuela, a nation that brutalizes its own people, so Chevron can go get more oil. Biden has been hostile to Saudi Arabia in large part because of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post. Because the Venezuelans only kill their citizens and not Washington Post reporters, Biden is willing to help them raise more money to kill and persecute more Venezuelans.
The best response would be for the Biden administration to open up domestic energy production. It would lower costs and create jobs. But the Biden administration would rather alienate our Middle Eastern allies, embolden terrorist regimes and side with murderous dictators than let Americans go to work producing our own domestic energy. In September, The Wall Street Journal reported, "The Biden administration has leased fewer acres for oil-and-gas drilling offshore and on federal land than any other administration in its early stages dating back to the end of World War II."
The Biden administration's infatuation with getting rid of fossil fuels, something that will not happen, is driving up inflation and empowering China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Part of an environmentalist cult, the Biden administration is going to profoundly destabilize the world. Right now, it is draining our domestic oil reserves and driving up the costs to fill those reserves back up just as we can least afford the payments.
Former President Barack Obama wanted to never let a crisis go to waste. Biden is manufacturing a crisis to take advantage of it, but a lot of smarter and more nefarious regimes are taking advantage of his aged infirmities and his administration's malodorous schemes to force Americans into a lithium dependence, largely controlled by China. Now, as gas prices rise again, expect Democrats to claim Saudi Arabia is trying to help elect Republicans.
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