An arms-length relationship would better reflect the decline in both confluence of interests and strategic importance to the United States.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) decision at the March 31 OPEC+ meeting to refuse to use their substantial spare production capacity to offset widely anticipated losses in export volumes, while also tying the decision to a pressure campaign on the Biden administration for concessions on other issues, represents a major departure from the unspoken but well understood “oil for security” tradeoff.
This view, which has long underpinned America’s partnerships with those countries, was already arguably outdated in terms of U.S. interests.
But now, these states’ demonstration of their unreliability in an energy crisis should lead to a downgrading of those relationships to more of an “arms-length” stance. Indeed, this would not only reflect the United States’ reduced confluence of interests with the Saudis and Emiratis, but also the declining importance of the Middle East to U.S. national interests.