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      Republicans rush to label economic slowdown as ‘Joe Biden’s recession’

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      Republicans rush to label economic slowdown as ‘Joe Biden’s recession’Republicans are quick to call a recession as the administration points to brighter employment numbers Prices are rising in the US at the fastest rate in four decades. The Fed raised interest rates again. And new data showed the American economy shrank for a second consecutive quarter, intensifying fears of a recession and handing Republicans a potent line of attack just months before the midterm elections.For embattled Joe Biden, Thursday’s gross domestic product figures were the latest in a string of worrying economic developments clouding his presidency this week. The news came as Democrats celebrated a breakthrough on the president’s long-stalled economic agenda after Senator Joe Manchin announced his support for a version of the plan in a shock reversal for the West Virginia holdout.Joe Biden hails Senate deal as ‘most significant’ US climate legislation everRead moreWith control of Congress in the balance, Republicans seized on the turn of events to accuse Democrats of deepening economic disarray with their spending plans. Widespread pessimism about the state of the economy has shaped up to be Biden’s biggest political vulnerability, weighing down his approval ratings and threatening Democrats’ chances in November.Moments after the Bureau of Economic Analysis published the highly anticipated GDP report on Thursday morning, Republicans declared the economy well into the throes of “Joe Biden’s recession” and blamed Democrats’ policy initiatives for making life costlier for Americans.“Biden and Democrats are responsible for our shrinking economy, and they’re only trying to make it worse,” said Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.GDP, the broadest measure of economic activity, fell by an annual rate of 0.09%, following a 1.6% annual decline in the first three months of the year, according to the commerce department. The numbers recorded two consecutive quarters of declining economic output, a common – but not official – definition of recession.On Thursday, Biden dismissed fears that the US was in a recession, arguing that the economy was “on the right path”.“There’s going to be a lot of chatter today on Wall Street and among pundits about whether we are in a recession,” Biden said on Thursday afternoon. “But if you look at our job market, consumer spending, business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well.”In anticipation of the report, the White House has sought to convince Americans that two quarters of economic decline does not necessarily mean the US is in recession, particularly because unemployment remains low, job growth robust and household savings elevated.Biden stressed those sources of strength in the economy during an earlier appearance on Thursday, concluding: “That doesn’t sound like a recession to me.”The president also urged Congress to move quickly to pass his economic agenda that the White House argues will help ease the financial burden on American households by lowering the costs of healthcare and prescription drugs.Biden did pause to take a victory lap on Thursday, interrupting his meeting with the CEOs of five US businesses to announce that the House had enough votes to pass a sprawling bipartisan package designed to strengthen American manufacturing and increase the US’s competitiveness against China.The bill, which next goes to his desk for signatures, will “make cars cheaper, appliances cheaper, and computers cheaper”, Biden said in a statement. “It will lower the costs of every day goods.”But Republicans said the Democrats’ climate, healthcare and tax plan, formerly known as “Build Back Better” and recast as the “Inflation Reduction Act”, would only cause further financial hardship, especially after they passed a $1.9tn coronavirus relief package last year.“The definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” the Republican congressman Vern Gale Buchanan of Florida wrote on Twitter. “Yet here we are now entering a recession and Democrats are trying to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Green New Deal priorities and raise taxes on America’s job creators.”Soaring inflation – now running at 40-year highs – led the Federal Reserve on Wednesday to increase interest rates in an effort to bring down prices, the second such increase in just over a month.Labelling the downturn a recession may be more politically charged than economically precise. Recessions are officially declared by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private research group, and usually only after the decline is over.“Bottom Line,” Diane Swonk, chief economist for KPMG, said on Twitter, “We are not in a recession – yet. But the current environment is [not] healthy. The cure will be painful but is necessary to avoid an even worse outcome. Rock & hard spot. Scars likely. Hard.”The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the US economy is in a state of transition, from a period of fast-paced growth to a period of more sustainable growth.Recession, she explained, is generally viewed as a “broad-based weakening of our economy” that includes “substantial job losses and mass layoffs, businesses shutting down, private sector activities slowing considerably”.“That is not what we are seeing right now,” she said.Yet even without an official determination of whether the US is in a recession, polling has found that most Americans believe it is: something likely to cause Democrats pain at the ballot box in November’s crucial elections.According to a recent CNN poll, 64% of Americans “feel” the economy is in recession, including 56% of Democrats and 63% of independents. The same survey found that four in 10 view the economy as “very poor”, an 11-point rise since the spring.Biden defended his administration’s actions, arguing that the economic stimulus plan was “the reason why we still had teachers in school, kids going to school, the reason why we had cops on the beat, the reason we had essential workers,” during the depths of the pandemic. But he admitted that the “vast majority of Americans have no idea what the recovery plan did”.Now, with their congressional majorities hanging in the balance, Democrats must persuade voters to trust their economic leadership as they rush to pass Biden’s economic agenda, which they vow will help, not hurt American pocketbooks.Manchin, who just weeks ago appeared to walk away from his party’s economic plans over concerns that it would worsen inflation, said his newfound support for the measure was based on assurances that it would not.Explaining his decision, Manchin told reporters: “This is truly going to be around inflation reduction.”TopicsBiden administrationInflationEconomicsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Justice department gets warrant to search Trump lawyer’s phone

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      Justice department gets warrant to search Trump lawyer’s phoneJohn Eastman spoke at a rally before the Capitol attack and claimed Mike Pence could halt certification of Biden’s election win The US justice department said on Wednesday it had obtained a warrant to search the phone of Donald Trump’s election attorney, John Eastman, who spoke at a rally before the January 6 assault on the US Capitol.Federal agents seized Eastman’s phone in June based on a warrant authorizing them to take the device. They needed a second warrant to search the phone’s contents.In a filing with US district court in New Mexico, the assistant US attorney Thomas Windom said the US district court for the District of Columbia issued a search warrant on 12 July authorizing review of the phone’s contents and manual screen capture.He said federal agents in northern Virginia had the phone and screenshots of some of its contents.Eastman has been under intense scrutiny in the investigations into the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters after the former president falsely claimed that he had won the 2020 election. Eastman spoke at the rally where Trump gave a fiery speech alleging election fraud and urging supporters to march on the Capitol.Eastman also wrote a memo outlining how, in his view, Mike Pence could thwart formal congressional certification of Trump’s re-election loss. The then vice-president declined to follow Eastman’s advice.Wednesday’s filing was made in New Mexico because Eastman had previously filed a suit there asking a judge to order the justice department to return the phone, destroy records and block investigators from accessing the phone.The judge denied that request but ordered the government to update the court by Wednesday on the location of the phone and status of a second search warrant.A representative for Eastman was not immediately available for comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsBiden administrationDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Do the Democrats have a Biden problem? – podcast

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      The approval ratings of the US president are at a record low. Washington DC bureau chief David Smith considers whether Joe Biden will stand for re-election in 2024

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      After the chaos of Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s appointment as US president was supposed to bring a return to normal: a safe, competent politician who knows how to get things done. But more than two years since he came to office, the US is moving from one crisis to the next. With decades-high inflation, near-weekly mass shootings and failure to make progress on the climate crisis, Biden has reached record levels of unpopularity with voters. And some Democrats are now questioning whether he’s the best candidate to lead their party. The Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, tells Michael Safi that November’s midterm elections may be pivotal in deciding the president’s future. More

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      Biden ‘doing just fine’ after testing positive for Covid, White House says

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      Biden ‘doing just fine’ after testing positive for Covid, White House saysAshish Jha, coronavirus response coordinator, and physician Kevin O’Connor say president contracted BA.5 variant Joe Biden is “feeling well” and “doing just fine” after testing positive for Covid, the White House coronavirus response coordinator said.Joe Biden’s mild Covid symptoms are improving, doctor saysRead moreAppearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ashish Jha said: “So it is the BA.5 variant, which is about 80% of infections. But thank goodness, our vaccines and therapeutics work well against it, which is why I think the president’s doing well.“I checked in with his team late last night. He was feeling well. He had a good day yesterday. He’s got a viral syndrome, an upper respiratory infection … and he’s doing just fine.”The White House later released a letter in which Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said the president’s “predominant symptom now is a sore throat”.O’Connor also said Biden had completed a third full day of treatment with Paxlovid, which would continue and was “experiencing no shortness of breath at all”.Biden’s positive test was announced on Thursday. At 79, the president is the oldest ever inaugurated. He is also, as he said, double-vaccinated and double-boosted and has access to the best possible care.On Sunday the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, told CNN’s State of the Union he knew Biden was still working “because on Thursday I got a call from the White House about something on transportation that he had asked me to follow up on”.Buttigieg also wished Biden “a speedy path back to 100%”.Jha was asked if the White House “will continue to make disclosures if [Biden] has long-term symptoms from this infection”.“Absolutely,” he said. “You know, we think it’s really important for the American people to know how well the president’s doing, which is why we have been so transparent, giving updates several times a day, having people hear from me directly, hear directly from his physician.“And obviously if he has persistent symptoms, if any of them interfere with his ability to carry out his duties, we will disclose that early and often.“But I suspect this is going to be a course of Covid that we’ve seen in many Americans who have been fully vaccinated, double-boosted, getting treated with those tools in hand. You know, the president has been doing well, and we’re gonna expect that he’s going to continue to do so.”Jha also suggested cities seeing high case rates, including New York, Phoenix and Miami, might consider re-instituting indoor mask mandates.“Masks work, right? They clearly slow down transmission. So in areas of high transmission, I think it’s very prudent for people to be wearing masks indoors, especially if they’re in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. That’s what the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommends. And I think that’s a very important and effective way of reducing transmission, protecting yourself as well.“You know, in terms of mandates, that’s something that we’ve always felt strongly should be done by local officials, mayors, governors, local health officials, and we’re seeing different officials take different tactics. And I think that’s actually appropriate given that we have a very diverse country with different transmission patterns and and willingness to kind of engage in-in wearing masks.”Jha was also asked about monkeypox, which on Saturday the World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern”. Would the Biden administration declare a pandemic?“Pandemics are declared by the World Health Organization,” Jha said, “and I actually applaud the World Health Organization for declaring that public health emergency of international concern. We are seeing outbreaks that are out of control in many, many parts of the world. It’s very important that we get our arms around this thing.“In the US right now, we’re looking at public health emergency as something that [the health department] might … invoke but it really depends on what does that allow us to do. Right now we have over 2,000 cases, but we have ramped up vaccinations, ramped up treatments, ramped up testing, and we’re going to continue to look at all sort of policy options. Right now, we think we can get our arms around this thing but obviously if we need further tools we will invoke them as we need them.”Jha said he thought monkeypox could be contained.Monkeypox declared global health emergency by WHO as cases surgeRead more“The way we contain monkeypox is we have a very simple, straightforward strategy on this, which is: make testing widely available. We have done that. And now testing is far more frequent and common.Answering the charge that the US was caught flat-footed by monkeypox, Jha said: “What I would acknowledge is that when we started two months ago, we had a limited supply of vaccines. We have obtained more than any other country, probably more than every other country combined. We have acted swiftly.”Asked if people should be concerned about another infectious disease, polio, which has been detected in New York, Jha said: “There is a lot of surveillance that we do for polio, there’s wastewater surveillance that goes on, we are not seeing outbreaks of polio elsewhere.“This one case has heightened everybody’s surveillance. But … CDC and the Department of Health of New York are doing an investigation to try to understand more, but I do not expect polio to become more widespread in the country, again, because so many Americans are vaccinated against this.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsOmicron variantCoronavirusBiden administrationDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources say

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      Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayHouse committee wants all communications from day before and day of Capitol attack but agency indicates such messages are lost The Secret Service turned over just one text message to the House January 6 committee on Tuesday, in response to a subpoena compelling the production of all communications from the day before and the day of the US Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Primetime January 6 hearing to go ahead despite chairman’s positive Covid testRead moreThe Secret Service told the panel the single text was the only message responsive to the subpoena, the sources said, and while the agency vowed to conduct a forensic search for any other text or phone records, it indicated such messages were likely to prove irrecoverable.House investigators also learned that the texts were seemingly lost as part of an agency-wide reset of phones on 27 January 2021, the sources said – 11 days after Congress first requested the communications and two days after agents were reminded to back up their phones.The disclosures were worse than the committee had anticipated, the sources said. The panel had hoped to receive more than a single text and was dismayed to learn that the messages were lost even after they had been requested for congressional investigations.It marked a damaging day for the Secret Service, which is required to preserve records like any other executive branch agency, and now finds itself in the crosshairs of the select committee examining its response with respect to the Capitol attack.The circumstances surrounding the erasure of the Secret Service texts have become central to the January 6 committee’s work as it investigates how agents and leaders planned to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence as violence unfolded at the Capitol.The controversy – and the subpoena – over the lost text messages came last week after the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, the watchdog for the Secret Service, revealed many messages from the time in question had gone missing.In a letter to Congress, the inspector general said some Secret Service texts from 5 and 6 January 2021 were erased amid a “device replacement program” and indicated that the agency was stonewalling his investigation by slow-walking the production of evidence.The Secret Service has said the missing texts were purged as part of a planned agency-wide reset of phones and replacement of devices. Agents were told to back up data to an internal drive, one source said, but that directive appears to have been ignored.Hours after the complaint letter from Cuffari, the chair of the January 6 committee, Bennie Thompson, met the panel’s staff director, David Buckley, and his deputy, Kristin Amerling, before convening members to request a closed-door briefing from the inspector general.The Guardian first reported the inspector general told the committee the Secret Service’s account of why the texts went missing kept changing, among other issues, prompting the panel to issue a subpoena for the texts and after-action reports later the same day.But even as the Secret Service complied with the subpoena, and produced thousands of pages of documents related to decisions made on the day of the Capitol attack, the agency could provide just one text message, the sources said.The Secret Service was also unable to provide any after-action reports, the sources said, because none were conducted. Cuffari said the agency opted to use his review as the after-action report – only for personnel to slow-walk his investigation, the sources said.A spokesman for the Secret Service could not immediately be reached for comment.The fallout from the missing text messages episode, as well as testimony from former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson describing a fracas inside the presidential vehicle on January 6 as Trump tried to reach for the steering wheel, has renewed questions over credibility.According to the Secret Service, the sequence of events was as follows: agents were told of a forthcoming update in December 2020, Congress requested communications on 16 January 2021, agents were reminded to back-up data on 25 January and the update went through on 27 January 2021.The agents were told in the reminder about “how to save information that they were obligated or desired to preserve so that no pertinent data or federal records” were lost, though the note seemingly went unheeded and texts were purged.House investigators are currently discussing with the inspector general the possibility of reconstructing the lost texts, the sources said, examining options including acquiring specialized software and forensic tools.The justice department inspector general has been able to retrieve lost texts, recovering messages in 2018 from two senior FBI officials who investigated former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Trump and exchanged notes criticizing the latter.The Secret Service was not responsible for security at the Capitol on January 6 – that is performed by US Capitol police – but agents led protection details for Trump, Pence, and other executive branch officials across Washington that day.But Secret Service actions have become a focus for House investigators as they investigate whether and when the agency knew Trump wanted to go to the Capitol, and whether it intended to remove Pence from the complex as rioters sought to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.The missing texts are also the subject of a new investigation, after the National Archives told the Secret Service to launch an internal review and issue a report within 30 calendar days, if it found that any texts were “improperly deleted”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsSecret ServiceUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      To avert election disaster, Democrats need to run a fiercely pro-worker campaign | Steven Greenhouse

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      To avert election disaster, Democrats need to run a fiercely pro-worker campaignSteven GreenhouseYou won’t hear this on Fox News, but Biden did a terrific job lifting America out of the pandemic-induced downturn. The nation added 8.9m jobs during Biden’s first 18 months in office If the Democrats hope to avoid disaster in this November’s elections, they need to do a far better job making their case to working-class voters. Many blue-collar Americans are understandably upset about inflation, but it’s less understandable that they give higher marks on the economy to Republicans than to Democrats, considering that President Biden and the Democrats have done far more to boost the economy and help workers.You will hardly ever hear this on Fox News, but Biden and the Democrats pushed through an emergency rescue plan that did a terrific job lifting America’s economy out of the pandemic-induced downturn. They did such a good job that millions of workers moved to higher-paying employment as the nation added 8.9m jobs during Biden’s first 18 months in office – more than in any other president’s first 18 months.TopicsJoe BidenOpinionBiden administrationDemocratsUS unionsUS politicsWorkers’ rightsUS economycommentReuse this content More

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      Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agenda

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      Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agendaWest Virginia senator refuses to support funding for climate crisis and says he will not back tax raises for wealthy Americans Joe Biden has promised executive action on climate change after Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who has repeatedly thwarted his own party while making millions in the coal industry, refused to support more funding for climate action.Did Joe Manchin block climate action to benefit his financial interests?Read moreIn another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, the West Virginia senator also came out against tax raises for wealthy Americans.Manchin’s opposition became clear on Thursday night. On Friday, with Biden in Saudi Arabia, the White House issued a statement.Biden said: “Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.“So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment.“My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change. I will not back down: the opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent.”Biden and Democrats hope to include environmental measures in a $1tn version of the $2tn Build Back Better spending bill Manchin killed last year in dramatic fashion.Then, the Biden White House angrily accused Manchin of breaching “commitments to the president and [his] colleagues in the House and Senate”. Bridges were rebuilt but on Thursday night Manchin appeared to reach for the dynamite once again.According to a Democrat briefed on negotiations, Manchin told Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, he would oppose legislation if it included climate or green energy provisions or higher taxes on the rich and corporations.The Democrat also said Manchin told Schumer he would support a new spending package only if it was limited to curbing pharmaceutical prices and extending federal subsidies for buying healthcare insurance.Manchin disputed that version of events in a call to a West Virginia radio show. He said he told Schumer he would not commit to environmental or tax measures until he saw the inflation rate for July, which is due out on 10 August, and the size of the expected interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve at the end of July.“Let’s wait until that comes out, so we know that we’re going down a path that won’t be inflammatory, to add more to inflation,” Manchin said. “I can’t make that decision … on taxes … and also on the energy and climate because it takes the taxes to pay for the investment into clean technology that I’m in favor of. But I’m not going to do something and overreach that causes more problem.”Manchin said he asked Schumer for time.“I said, ‘Chuck, can we just wait. How much more and how much damaging is that going to be?’ He took that as a no, I guess, and came out with this big thing last night, and I don’t know why they did that.”In Riyadh, Biden told reporters: “I’m not going away. I’m using every power I have as president to continue to fulfill my pledge to move toward dealing with global warming.”Asked if Manchin had been “negotiating in good faith”, Biden said: “I didn’t negotiate with Joe Manchin.”In his earlier statement, Biden also promised progress on healthcare.He said: “After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act.“Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.”To pass legislation, Democrats are dependent on Manchin’s vote in a Senate divided 50-50 and controlled by the vice-president, Kamala Harris.In March last year, Manchin backed Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief package after tense negotiations during which, according to the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Biden told him: “Joe, please don’t kill my bill.”But the senator has since stood in the way of much of Biden’s agenda, from the Build Back Better package to measures which would require reform to the filibuster, the Senate rule which requires a 60-vote supermajority for most legislation.Democrats and progressives have argued for scrapping or reforming the filibuster in order to legislate on key issues under attack from the right, including voting rights and abortion.But Manchin and others opposed to such moves, prominently including Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, are in part aligned with Biden, a former senator opposed to abolishing the filibuster entirely.Manchin will not face re-election as the only Democrat in statewide office in West Virginia, a state with a powerful coal industry lobby, until 2024. His business, Enersystems, has earned millions of dollars as the only supplier of low-grade coal to a high-polluting power plant near Fairmont, West Virginia.‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate actionRead moreAccording to campaign finance filings, in 2021-22 Manchin is the senator who has received most money from donors in coal mining, natural gas transmission and distribution and oil and gas. He is second for donations from alternate energy production and services.Climate advocates reacted angrily to Manchin’s move.“It’s outrageous that Manchin and the Republican party have killed climate legislation this Congress,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity advocacy group.Norm Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said: “Senators have told me and others that negotiating with Joe Manchin is like negotiating with an Etch-a-Sketch. It appears to be a coal-powered Etch-a-Sketch.”John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, said: “It seems odd that Senator Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity. But we can’t throw in the towel on the planet.”TopicsJoe ManchinClimate crisisUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and China

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      Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and ChinaAnalysis: US president aiming to convince Jeddah to increase oil supply in order to calm global energy markets00:24Joe Biden landed in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah to a tepid welcome from the Saudi crown prince whose country he once pledged to make a “pariah” on the world stage.While Saudi Arabia announced it would open its airspace to flights from Israel, making Biden the first US president to fly directly from Tel Aviv to the kingdom, expectations of further gains during his visit remained low. The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists onboard Air Force One not to expect any bilateral announcements in response to American demands that Saudi Arabia pump more oil to calm global energy markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Fist bumps as Joe Biden arrives to reset ties with ‘pariah’ Saudi ArabiaRead moreSaudi Arabia is keen to prove its independence from US interests as it increasingly courts Russia and China.“From the start, my aim was to reorient – but not rupture – relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post prior to his visit, sidestepping his pledge on the campaign trail to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah”, and the later release of a US intelligence report stating that Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, “approved” an operation to capture and murder the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.“It’s a completely different Saudi Arabia, one that in many ways has modernised and opened up a bit, but is also seeing greater crackdowns – and the Biden administration is brutally aware of all this,” said Dina Esfandiary of the NGO Crisis Group.Biden’s visit means carefully stage-managing relations with Prince Mohammed, the Kingdom’s powerful de facto ruler, who observers say has the upper hand as Biden courts his goodwill at a time of rising global oil prices mounting a challenge to his presidency domestically.The two shared a fist bump on Biden’s arrival, although the president later warmly shook hands with the king, Salman bin Abdulaziz. At the start of the president’s Middle East trip, officials said he would avoid close contact such as shaking hands as a precaution against Covid.The US president is under intense pressure to repair the fragile relationship between two nations, one that traditionally relied on the kingdom liberally supplying oil to the global market in exchange for the US’s backing in areas of security and defence.This has increasingly shifted in recent years, exacerbated as the relationship between Biden and Prince Mohammed has soured and Saudi Arabia looks to Russia and China to diversify its interests.“The message from Saudi is you can’t tell us what to do, we’ll help you as far as it suits us but we won’t go against our own interests,” said Esfandiary.Cinzia Bianco, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed. “The Saudi leadership has learned to do without seeking validation from the United States, and Bin Salman in particular – he’s learned to survive and maybe even thrive within the region and to some degree internationally, without getting validation from the US administration,” she said.Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said that, with the visit to Saudi Arabia, Biden was reneging on previous promises to prioritise human rights. “It’s a very huge backing down actually,” Cengiz told the Associated Press. “It’s heartbreaking and disappointing. And Biden will lose his moral authority by putting oil and expediency over principles and values.”Saudi Arabia’s recent cooperation with Russia has included an agreement for Rosatom, a Russian state company, to build a nuclear power plant in the kingdom, as well as signing an agreement last year to “explore ways to develop military to strengthen the military and defence cooperation” between the two countries according to the deputy defence minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman.China is historically the largest importer of Saudi Arabian oil, while the kingdom has bought Chinese arms including drones and fighter aircraft. Last November, US intelligence agencies concluded that Saudi Arabia is manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, according to satellite imagery.Bianco stressed that the US administration saw Biden’s visit as a vital opportunity to intervene and warm relations before Saudi Arabia moves ahead with Chinese and Russian deals that largely remain in their infancy. “The US administration sees an opportunity to undo all of that or take a step back and create some space,” she said. “There’s a lot on paper rather than in reality, and there’s still space for the administration to try to create some distance between Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.”Yet as Biden landed in Jeddah to discuss how to increase the global supply of oil in order to bring down prices, doubts persisted as to whether he would fly home with anything to show for his visit at all. Shortly before his arrival, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia had more than doubled its imports of Russian oil in order to free up more of its own crude for export, shunning demands for sanctions from the west while increasing profit margins amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“Maybe the US administration had good intentions when it began setting up this trip, but ultimately it’s making them look bad – they’re losing the public relations war,” said Esfandiary. “It’s not clear that they’re going to make any gains, my sense is that everyone will walk away disappointed.”TopicsUS foreign policyJoe BidenUS politicsSaudi ArabiaMiddle East and north AfricaBiden administrationMohammed bin SalmananalysisReuse this content More