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Biden signals this may be more than a lovers’ spat with Saudi Arabia

The statement comes as leading lawmakers push for a fundamental change to Washington’s relationship to Riyadh.

Europe

President Joe Biden wants to work with Congress to “re-evaluate” the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia following OPEC’s recent decision to significantly cut oil production, according to a White House spokesperson.

“The president's been very clear that this is a relationship that we need to continue to re-evaluate, that we need to be willing to revisit,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told CNN. “He's willing to work with Congress to think through what that relationship ought to look like going forward.”

“I don't think this is anything that's going to have to wait or should wait, quite frankly, for much longer,” Kirby added.

The statement comes as Biden faces unprecedented pressure from lawmakers for a fundamental change to U.S.-Saudi ties. 

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday that Washington should freeze “all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including any arms sales and security cooperation beyond what is absolutely necessary to defend U.S. personnel and interests.”

Three Democratic House members went further Friday when they introduced a bill that would mandate the removal of all American military assets from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

And on Sunday, Sen. Richard Blumental (D-Conn.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced a bicameral proposal that would “immediately halt all U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.” In an op-ed for Politico, Blumenthal and Khanna also said that their bill “is already garnering bipartisan support in both chambers.”

Notably, the blowback has centered around the idea that the OPEC+ decision will benefit Russia, a major oil exporter, in its war in Ukraine. Military partnerships could return if Riyadh “reconsiders its embrace of Putin,” as Blumenthal and Khanna wrote. This signals a lack of interest in using this new wave of pressure to push for an end to the brutal Saudi war in Yemen, which has animated many of the kingdom’s biggest U.S. critics in recent years.

Regardless, Biden’s response shows a marked shift in White House thinking on U.S.-Saudi ties just a few months after the president’s controversial visit to Riyadh, in which he and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman shared a now-infamous fist bump.


President Joe Biden (Shutterstock/Trevor Bexon) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (US State Department)
Europe
Trump ASEAN
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., next to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when posing for a family photo with leaders at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 26, 2025. Vincent Thian/Pool via REUTERS

‘America First’ meets ‘ASEAN Way’ in Kuala Lumpur

Asia-Pacific

The 2025 ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Kuala Lumpur beginning today are set to be consequential multilateral gatherings — defining not only ASEAN’s internal cohesion but also the shape of U.S.–China relations in the Indo-Pacific.

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Top photo credit: Top image credit: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi shake hands as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu looks on during their meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

'Annulled'! Russia won't abide snapback sanctions on Iran

Middle East

“A raider attack on the U.N. Security Council.” This was the explosive accusation leveled by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov this week. His target was the U.N. Secretariat and Western powers, whom he blamed for what Russia sees as an illegitimate attempt to restore the nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

Beyond the fiery rhetoric, Ryabkov’s statement contained a message: Russia, he said, now considers all pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran, snapped back by the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) — the United Kingdom, France, Germany — “annulled.” Moscow will deepen its military-technical cooperation with Tehran accordingly, according to Ryabkov.

This is more than a diplomatic spat; it is the formal announcement of a split in international legal reality. The world’s major powers are now operating under two irreconcilable interpretations of international law. On one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany assert that the sanctions snapback mechanism of the JCPOA was legitimately triggered for Iran’s alleged violations. On the other, Iran, Russia, and China reject this as an illegitimate procedural act.

This schism was not inevitable, and its origin reveals a profound incongruence. The Western powers that most frequently appeal to the sanctity of the "rules-based international order" and international law have, in this instance, taken an action whose effects fundamentally undermine it. By pushing through a legal maneuver that a significant part of the Security Council considers illegitimate, they have ushered the world into a new and more dangerous state. The predictable, if imperfect, framework of universally recognized Security Council decisions is being replaced by a system where legal facts are determined by political interests espoused by competing power blocs.

This rupture followed a deliberate Western choice to reject compromises in a stand-off with Iran. While Iran was in a technical violation of the provisions of the JCPOA — by, notably, amassing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (up to 60% as opposed to the 3.67% for a civilian use permissible under the JCPOA), there was a chance to avert the crisis. In the critical weeks leading to the snapback, Iran had signaled concessions in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo, in terms of renewing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s inspectors.

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Top Photo Credit: (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

On Ukraine and Venezuela, Trump needs to dump the sycophants

Europe

While diplomats labored to produce the Dayton Accords in 1995, then-Secretary of Defense Bill Perry advised, “No agreement is better than a bad agreement.” Given that Washington’s allies in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw are opposed to any outcome that might end the war in Ukraine, no agreement may be preferable. But for President Trump, there is no point in equating the illusion of peace in Ukraine with a meaningless ceasefire that settles nothing.

Today, Ukraine is mired in corruption, starting at the very highest levels of the administration in Kyiv. Sending $175 billion of borrowed money there "for however long it takes" has turned out to be worse than reckless. The U.S. national sovereign debt is surging to nearly $38 trillion and rising by $425 billion with each passing month. President Trump needs to turn his attention away from funding Joe Biden’s wars and instead focus on the faltering American economy.

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