Tag: Saudi Arabia

Biden threatens ‘consequences’ for Saudi Arabia after OPEC cut, but his options are limited

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US President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrive for the family photo during the Jeddah Security and Development Summit (GCC+3) at a hotel in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on July 16, 2022.

Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

President Joe Biden is angry at Saudi Arabia for its decision to slash oil production along with its OPEC allies against U.S. wishes, and he’s made no secret of it.

With the global economy on a knife-edge and energy prices high, Washington sees the kingdom’s move – which it made in coordination with Russia and other oil-producing states – as a snub and a blatant display of siding with Moscow.

The oil producer group in early October announced its largest supply cut since 2020, to the tune of 2 million barrels per day from November, which its members say is designed to spur a recovery in crude prices to counter a potential fall in demand.

For this, Biden said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that there would be “consequences.” He did not go into further detail as to what those consequences might be.

But what are the Biden administration’s options, and could they backfire?

Weapons and antitrust laws

The Saudi-U.S. relationship was founded, broadly speaking, on the principle of energy for security. Washington has since the 1940s provided billions of dollars in military and security aid to Saudi Arabia. But in recent years, and particularly since the Obama administration began making diplomatic inroads with Iran, Riyadh feels the U.S. commitment to its security has waned.

“The truth is, neither side has been holding up their end of the bargain for nearly 10 years now,” Michael Stephens, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told CNBC.

“And what you’re seeing, I think, are permanent fractures in the relationship that are based on the fact that neither side really sees as much strategic benefit in the other as they did 20 years ago,” Stephens said, adding that Saudi Arabia’s OPEC oil production cut “is a reflection of that.”

The potential “consequences” Washington can put into action include cutting its military support to the Saudi kingdom, and going after OPEC with U.S. laws.

A file photo of cannisters containing Patriot missiles to intercept missiles fired at Saudi Arabia or its neighboring countries.

Greg Mathieson | Mai | The LIFE Images Collection | Getty Images

Indeed, just one day before Biden’s comments, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, demanded that the U.S. immediately halt all cooperation with Saudi Arabia — including weapons sales.

“The United States must immediately 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,” Menendez said in a statement.

In an earlier interview with CNBC, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., asked, “What’s the point of looking the other way when the Saudis chop up journalists and repress political speech inside Saudi Arabia if when the chips are down, the Saudis effectively choose the Russians over the U.S.?”

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., weighed in, demanding in a tweet that: “If Saudi Arabia, one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, wants to partner with Russia to jack up US gas prices, it can get Putin to defend its monarchy. We must pull all US troops out of Saudi Arabia, stop selling them weapons & end its price-fixing oil cartel.”

Beyond withholding military aid, there are legal channels the U.S. government can pursue.

One is the NOPEC bill, which stands for No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels. This would classify OPEC as a cartel and subject its members to antitrust legislation.

Something long discussed by lawmakers, the bill is designed to protect U.S. consumers and businesses from artificial oil spikes.

It passed a Senate committee in early May and hasn’t yet been signed into law, but could expose OPEC countries and partners to lawsuits for coordinating supply cuts that raise global crude prices.

The bill would still need to be passed by the full Senate and House and signed into law by the president to go into effect. OPEC ministers have previously criticized the NOPEC bill, warning it would bring greater chaos to energy markets.

Consequences for the U.S. – and for crude prices

The decision by OPEC+ – which constitutes OPEC and its non-OPEC allies like Russia – to cut its output “underscores the extent to which the Biden administration has lost its ability to influence Saudi OPEC+ policy,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal MENA analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.

“The White House has few good options despite Biden’s warning of ‘consequences’ after the cut,” he said, noting U.S. lawmakers’ threats of antitrust legislation and removal of U.S. military assets from Saudi Arabia.

While both courses of action would send a clear message, they could backfire for both the U.S. and for crude prices.

“Both of these options would threaten to break already fraught relations, which in turn would put even greater upward pressure on oil and fuel prices,” Soltvedt said.

“In short, a breakdown in U.S.-Saudi relations would mean a higher Middle East risk premium for the global oil market and higher oil and fuel prices,” he said. “This is the opposite of what the White House is trying to achieve ahead of midterm elections in November.”

It’s also key to note that the 2 million barrel per day cut will not in fact be as big as that headline figure; several member states have already been far short of their individual production ceilings, and Iraq for instance has indicated it will be producing more than its assigned quota.

Still, many American politicians have long been out of patience with the nature of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, especially as U.S. imports of Saudi oil have shrunk over the years and more than 80% of the Middle East’s crude exports now go to Asia.

This, Soltvedt said, has made a growing number of U.S. lawmakers “question why the American Navy should underwrite the security of Middle Eastern oil exports when those barrels are increasingly going East rather than West.”

— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

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October 12, 2022
Saudis aren’t weaponizing oil like Americans claim, top official says | CNN Business

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CNN
—

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir said his country partnered with Russia to slash oil production in order to stabilize markets and denied that there were political motives behind the decision, which has enraged US leaders and sparked calls to rethink ties with Riyadh.

“We’re trying to make sure we don’t have erratic swings in prices,” al-Jubeir, one of Saudi Arabia’s top diplomats, told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Wednesday. “Our track record has been clear – we have always worked assiduously to maintain stability in the oil markets.”

Last week, OPEC+, the oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed to slash production by 2 million barrels per day, twice as much as analysts had predicted, in the biggest cut since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The move came despite an intense pressure campaign from the United States, which had warned Arab allies that such a move would increase prices and help Russian President Vladimir Putin continue to fund his war in Ukraine. Experts also fear that continued high oil prices could make it more difficult for the US to tamp down inflation, which has already skyrocketed this year.

Al-Jubeir, who is also the country’s climate minister, denied that there were any political motives to the decision and said the production cut was made to avoid major swings in the price of oil, which can affect consumers worldwide, and pointed to the fact that the price of oil has gone down since the reduction was announced last week.

“Saudi Arabia is not siding with Russia,” he told CNN. “Saudi Arabia is taking the side of trying to ensure the stability of the oil markets.”

“Saudi Arabia does not politicize oil. We don’t see oil as a weapon. We see oil as our commodity. Our objective is to bring stability to the oil market,” al-Jubeir said.

US President Joe Biden told CNN on Tuesday that Washington must now “rethink” its relationship with Riyadh following the cut. The decision was a particular affront for Biden because of his efforts over the summer to repair ties with Saudi Arabia, despite the kingdom’s woeful human rights record and the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Bin Salman denied involvement in the murder, which captured international headlines in part due to the lurid details of the killing.

“I am in the process, when the House and Senate gets back, they’re going to have to – there’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done with Russia,” Biden said.

Watch the full exclusive interview with President Joe Biden

On Wednesday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden would examine all aspects of US ties with Saudi Arabia, including arms sales, as administration officials begin quiet discussions with members of Congress and congressional aides about how the US could impose consequences on the kingdom following the oil output cut.

“There is a range of interests and values that are implicated in our relationship with that country,” Sullivan told reporters. “The President will examine all of that. But one question he’s going to ask is: Is the nature of the relationship serving the interest and values of the United States and what changes would make it better serve the interests and values?”

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud said in an interview with Saudi TV earlier Wednesday that OPEC+ needed to be proactive as central banks in the West moved to tackle inflation with higher interest rates, a move that could raise prospects of a global recession, which could in turn reduce demand for oil and drive its price down. Cutting production would ensure a smaller supply of oil, keeping its price higher. While that would protect the Saudi economy by ensuring it receives a steady flow of income from oil sales, it would force consumers across the world to pay more for energy and gas, further fueling inflation.

Saudi officials have insisted that the production cut is being done to protect the country’s economic interests. Because of its heavy dependence on oil revenues, the Saudi economy has a history of falling victim to boom and bust cycles in the oil market, where high prices bring in a flow of cash followed by downturns.

In the United States, however, the cut could have massive political ramifications ahead of next month’s midterm elections. After reaching highs over the summer, gas prices in the United States had been steadily decreasing, providing Biden and his top aides a potent talking point in the lead-up to the elections.

But a combination of factors, including rising demand and maintenance at some US refineries, has caused prices to begin ticking back up. The OPEC+ decision is likely to aggravate those factors.

The decision set off bipartisan fury in Washington when it was first announced last week. Saudi Arabia is now being accused of filling the Kremlin’s coffers with oil revenues just days after President Putin’s regime began carrying out large-scale missile attacks on civilian targets across Ukraine

“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” tweeted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, on Friday.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Wednesday called for immediate action on his bill that would stop US arm sales to Saudi Arabia.

“The Saudis actions aid and abet a murderous and brutal criminal invasion by Russia,” Blumenthal said.

When asked about growing calls in Washington to limit ties with Saudi Arabia, al-Jubeir said he hoped that such talk was motivated by domestic politics ahead of the midterms.

Al-Jubeir said the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia remains “robust.”

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US have had a very strong relationship for eight decades … and we look forward to this relationship continuing for the next eight decades,” he added.

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October 12, 2022
A failed truce renewal in Yemen could further complicate US-Saudi relations | CNN
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Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
—

After a rare six months of relative calm, Yemen’s warring sides last week failed to renew a truce deal, with calls from the United Nations for an extension falling on deaf ears.

With one side backed by Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia, it remains to be seen whether the US will support its Middle Eastern ally after last week’s whopping oil cut – seen as a snub from the oil-rich kingdom to the Biden administration ahead of the US midterm elections.

The country’s Iran-backed Houthis and their rival Saudi-led coalition had agreed on a nationwide truce in April, the first since 2016. The two-month truce was renewed twice but came to an end last week over eleventh-hour demands put forward by the Houthis with regards to public sector wages.

At the last minute, the Houthis imposed “maximalist and impossible demands that the parties simply could not reach, certainly in the time that was available,” said US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking in a statement, adding that diplomatic efforts by the US and the UN continue.

“The unannounced reasons [for not renewing the truce] are speculated to be that the Iranians asked the Houthis, directly, to help escalate things in the region,” said Maged Almadhaji, director of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies.

“Iranians and Houthis are in a difficult political position,” Almadhaji told CNN, adding that Iranians are under immense pressure amid raging protests at home and might be trying to keep Gulf rivals at bay by keeping them occupied with Yemen’s conflict.

The few months of ceasefire were a breath of fresh air for millions of Yemenis who, in the last seven years of conflict, were driven to “acute need,” the UN said. The peace period saw the monthly rate of people displaced internally dip by 76%, and the number of civilians killed or injured by fighting lowered by 54%, said the UN last week.

Yemen has been described by the UN as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

Lenderking said that some aspects of the initial truce are still being upheld, such as relatively low violence, continued fuel shipments that can still offload into the Houthi-held Hodeidah port as well as resumed civilian-commercial flights from Sanaa airport. But the risks are very high.

The Houthis have already warned investors to steer clear of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as they are “fraught with risks” – a message seen as a direct threat that the Iran-backed group is ready to strike once again.

“With the Houthis, it is always risky not to take their threats seriously,” Peter Salisbury, consultant at International Crisis Group, told CNN.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have previously launched attacks on the oil-rich countries, mainly targeting oil fields and key airports. In March, Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on an Aramco oil storage facility in Jeddah. And in January, they said they were behind a drone strike on fuel trucks near the airport in Abu Dhabi.

Saudi Arabia has previously sounded alarms to its powerful US security ally over these attacks, criticizing the Biden administration over what it perceived as waning US security presence in the volatile Middle East.

Security agitation among Gulf monarchies was exacerbated by US nuclear talks with Iran earlier this year, where the possibility of lifted economic sanctions posed the risk of an emboldened Tehran that, it was feared, would, in turn, further empower and arm its regional proxies – predominantly the Houthis.

But the Houthis are already arguably emboldened, said Gregory Johnsen, a former member of the United Nations’ Panel of Experts on Yemen.

“I think Iran would like nothing better than to leave the Houthis in Sanaa on Saudi’s border as check against future Saudi behavior,” Johnsen told CNN.

Saudi Arabia’s strongest security ally has been the US, and traditionally the two countries’ unwritten agreement has been oil in exchange for security – namely against Iranian hostility.

But now, as Saudi Arabia defies the US with its latest OPEC oil cut, the two countries’ friendship is under increased strain. And with already existing reluctance in congressional politics to increase military support to Saudi Arabia, it remains unclear whether the US will respond with swift support to its Middle Eastern ally should violence flare, said Salisbury.

A number of US Democratic politicians have accused Saudi Arabia of siding with Russia, saying the oil cut should be seen as a “hostile act” against the US.

The threats made by certain US senators against Saudi Arabia after Wednesday’s OPEC oil cut – some of whom have called on US President Joe Biden to “retaliate” – are not credible, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor in the UAE, adding that the response from the Biden administration “has been more restrained.”

It is in America’s interest to protect Middle Eastern oil producers, Abdulla told CNN, especially as supply tightens amid the Ukraine war and stalled nuclear talks with Iran.

“At this moment in history, America needs Saudi Arabia, needs the UAE, just as much as we need them for security purposes,” Abdulla said.

US policy toward Yemen has in recent years been in disarray, analysts say. The Obama administration first backed the Saudi-led coalition in 2016, but levels of support later changed as evidence emerged of civilian casualties in the Saudi-led air campaign.

Saudi Arabia enjoyed extensive support for its Yemen policy during the Trump administration. In late 2019, Biden promised to make the kingdom a pariah and, a little over a year later, he slashed US support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive operations in Yemen, “including relevant arms sales.”

The US continues, however, to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia through the loophole of “defense.”

The Biden administration last August approved and notified Congress of possible multibillion-dollar weapons sales to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing defense against Houthi attacks as a legitimate cause for concern.

“Now, the US is frustrated with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while it has no leverage with the Houthis,” said Johnsen. “The US has been lost at sea for the past year and a half when it comes to a Yemen policy,” he added, labelling it a situation largely “of its own making.”

While there is pressure within the US to sternly react to Saudi Arabia’s energy policies, it is yet to be seen how the US will respond to the developments in Yemen, where some say Washington would be wise to uphold its security guarantees.

“I don’t think it is in the best interest of America to reduce their military assistance to Saudi Arabia,” said Abdulla. “If they do, it will backfire on America more than many of these senators would imagine.”

At least 185 people, including at least 19 children, have been killed in nationwide protests across Iran since September, said Iran Human Rights (IHR), an Iran-focused human rights group based in Norway, on Saturday.

CNN cannot independently verify death toll claims. Human Rights Watch said that, as of September 30, Iranian state-affiliated media placed the number of deaths at 60.

Now in their third week, protests have swept across Iranian cities following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by morality police and taken to a “re-education center” for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

Here is the latest on this developing story:
Iranian police on Sunday dispersed high school girls who gathered to protest in southwestern Tehran. Meanwhile, an eyewitness told CNN that in the southeastern part of the city, girls took to the street shouting “woman, life, freedom” and “death to the dictator.”
The death toll from the crackdown on Saturday’s protests in Iran’s Kurdish city of Sanandaj has increased to at least four, according to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw on Sunday.
Iran’s state broadcaster IRINN (Islamic Republic of Iran News Network) was allegedly hacked during its nightly news program on Saturday, according to the pro-reform IranWire outlet, which shared a clip of the hacking. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported on the hacking, saying that IRIB/IRINN’s 9 p.m. newscast was hacked for a few moments by anti-revolutionary elements.
The internet connectivity monitoring service NetBlocks on Saturday said that Iran had shut off the internet in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj in an attempt to curb a growing protest movement amid reports of new killings.
Violent weekend as four Palestinians killed in West Bank, Israeli soldier killed in Jerusalem shooting

An Israeli soldier has died following a rare shooting at a military checkpoint in East Jerusalem on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces said. The attack comes after a violent two days in the occupied West Bank where Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, Palestinian authorities said.
Background: The shooting happened at a checkpoint of the normally quiet area near the Shuafat Refugee Camp in northeast Jerusalem, an area considered occupied territory by most of the international community. Video of the incident shows a man coming up to a group of soldiers and shooting them point blank before running away. Noa Lazar, an 18-year-old female soldier, was killed, and a 30-year-old guard was critically injured. In a statement, Prime Minister Yair Lapid called the attacker a “vile terrorist” and said Israel will “not rest until we bring these heinous murderers to justice.” Prior to the checkpoint attack, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over two days, according to Palestinian authorities. Two were killed in the Jenin Refugee Camp on Saturday when, the IDF said, clashes broke out as they came to arrest an “Islamic Jihad operative” that the IDF claimed was “involved in terrorist activities, planning and carrying out shooting attacks towards IDF soldiers in the area.” Another two, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in separate incidents elsewhere in the territories. The occupied West Bank, especially the areas of Jenin and Nablus, is in an increasingly volatile and dangerous situation, as near-daily clashes take place between the Israeli military and increasingly armed Palestinians.

Why it matters: More than 105 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces so far this year, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied territories since 2015, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel says most Palestinians killed were engaging violently with soldiers during military operations, although dozens of unarmed civilians have been killed as well, human rights groups including B’Tselem have said. Some 21 civilians and soldiers have been killed so far this year in attacks targeting Israelis.
US says a failed rocket attack targeted US and partnered forces in Syria

One rocket was launched at a base housing US and coalition troops in Syria on Saturday night, according to US Central Command. No US or coalition forces were injured in the attack, and no facilities or equipment were damaged, CENTCOM said in a statement.
Background: The rocket was a 107mm rocket, and additional rockets were found at the launch site, CENTCOM said. The attack is under investigation. On September 18, a similar rocket attack using 107mm rockets was launched against Green Village in Syria, a base housing US troops. Three 107mm rockets were launched and a fourth was found at the launch site.

Why it matters: The attack comes two days after US forces killed two top ISIS leaders in an airstrike in northern Syria, and three days after a US raid killed an ISIS smuggler. Although there is no attribution for the attack, such rocket launches are frequently used by Iranian-backed militias in Syria.
UAE president to meet with Putin during visit to Russia on Tuesday

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Russia on Tuesday, UAE state-run news agency WAM said.
Background: “During his visit, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed will discuss with President Putin the friendly relations between the UAE and Russia along with a number of regional and international issues and developments of common interest,” WAM said.

Why it matters: The visit comes less than a week after OPEC+, the international cartel of oil producers, announced a significant cut to output in an effort to raise oil prices. The UAE is a member of the organization led by Saudi Arabia and Russia. CNN has reached out to the UAE government for comment.
Before clicking enter on your Google search today, take a minute to check out today’s ‘Google Doodle.’ Standing by a library and a lighthouse is prominent Egyptian historian Mostafa El-Abbadi, who would have turned 94 today.

Hailed as “champion of Alexandria’s Resurrected Library” by the New York Times, he was the key player in resurrecting the Great Library of Alexandria.

The son of the founder of the College of Letters and Arts at the University of Alexandria, El-Abbadi’s love for academia came at a very young age.

The intellectual went on to graduate from the University of Cambridge and returned home as a professor of Greco-Roman studies at the University of Alexandria, where his love for the Library of Alexandria grew.

El-Abbadi sought to restore the glory of the “Great Library” which disappeared between 270 and 250 A.D. – and he succeeded.

Combined efforts by the Egyptian government, UNESCO, and other organizations led to the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on October 16, 2002.

Despite being the main driver of the project, El-Abbadi was not invited to the ceremony after he became a critic of how the scheme was handled by the authorities.

“It became the project of the presidents, of the people who cut the rope, the people who stood on the front stage, and not of Mostafa El-Abbadi,” said Prof. Mona Haggag, a former student of El-Abbadi and head of the department of Greek and Roman archaeology at the University of Alexandria, according to the New York Times.

By Mohammed Abdelbary
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October 10, 2022
Biden has a big oil problem. Here’s what you need to know about the recent OPEC+ decision. | CNN Politics

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A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

Washington
CNN
—

With just weeks to go until the November midterms, four letters are haunting President Joe Biden and the Democrats: OPEC.

Last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, said that it will slash oil production by 2 million barrels per day, the biggest cut since the start of the pandemic, in a move that threatens to push gasoline prices higher just weeks before US midterm elections.

The group announced the production cut following its first meeting in person since March 2020. The reduction is equivalent to about 2% of global oil demand.

The Biden administration criticized the decision in a statement, calling it “shortsighted” and saying that it’s harmful to some countries already struggling with elevated energy prices the most.

The production cuts will start in November. OPEC+, which combines OPEC countries and allies such as Russia, will meet again in December.

For one perspective on the OPEC+ decision and to better understand how it affects everyone, we turned to Hossein Askari, who teaches international business at The George Washington University.

Our conversation, conducted over the phone and lightly edited for flow and brevity, is below.

WHAT MATTERS: Can you walk us through this recent OPEC decision? What’s happening exactly?

ASKARI: So when the war in Ukraine started, sorry to tell your audience, but the United States was not very well prepared in what it was going to do. It sanctioned Russia for this and for that. And so the price of oil started going up. And at the same time, the United States actually put sanctions on Russian oil, not on gas, on oil. And so there was less Russian oil in the Western markets.

Russia actually started selling its oil more and more to China and to India and cutting its prices to those countries. So they would buy Russian oil, but there was a shortage of oil.

Another reason why the shortage had developed was America basically sanctions like a mad cowboy, if I may say that. It has sanctioned Venezuela for many years.

But Saudi Arabia, with the new effective ruler who’s known as MBS, he has cozied up to Putin. And so when President Biden went and saw him a few months back and kind of asked him to increase oil production – I’m sorry to say this, I have to throw in this bit of politics – I think America really shamed itself by doing that.

Of course, MBS did not respond positively. But now he, in fact, has gone over the top. He has agreed within OPEC – and of course he’s the main spokesman in OPEC with Russia – that they will cut back.

WHAT MATTERS: What does the OPEC decision mean for the average American?

ASKARI: From where we are now, crude oil prices by the end of the year, my guess, maximum, they’ll go up by $5 a barrel. Now, a lot of people think they’re gonna go up more than that. I don’t believe that, because I think the world economy is going to grow less and I think that we are going to see some Venezuelan oil come on the market, and I think we may see some deals made so some more Iranian oil may come on the market.

For gasoline, I think Americans can see maybe prices going up from where they are today, if nothing else happens, by about another 30 to 50 cents a gallon.

However, there is also another problem for Americans that is home heating oil, and that can also go up. So for the average American, they’re going to pay, no matter what, something more per gallon of gasoline at the pump. And I think there’s going to be more of an impact, actually, on the fuel oil that they heat their houses with. So it’s gonna put on the squeeze on the average American. There’s no two ways about it.

WHAT MATTERS: What should the US do now?

ASKARI: I think the United States should be much, much tougher with Saudi Arabia because we have bent over backward to accommodate them in every way. And we have looked the other way with what they’ve done. And now it’s the time to be tough. They’ve been tough with us. I think the President of the United States should be tough with Saudi Arabia.

WHAT MATTERS: What else can the US do in terms of helping with oil prices in the immediate term?

ASKARI: I think undoubtedly this administration has very bad rapport with US oil companies and energy companies. I think that there should be more behind-the scenes cooperation with the oil companies and the administration because you really need them now to cooperate.

I know a lot of people don’t believe in fracking, but maybe it’s time to do some more fracking. Maybe it’s time to increase output. They can increase output elsewhere too. I think that would be extremely, extremely helpful.

And I think the US oil companies – and I’m not a backer of oil companies, please don’t misunderstand – but I think they feel that the administration basically just wants to drive them out business.

WHAT MATTERS: Anything else you’d like to add?

ASKARI: Some people think that OPEC decisions are purely economic. Some people think purely political. It has always been both, especially for Saudi Arabia.

It is really Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates driving OPEC’s decision. I think Americans should understand it’s not the other members, it’s not Nigeria or Iran. I feel Americans should understand who are our friends and who are not our friends.

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October 10, 2022
Nirmala Sitharaman to visit US for annual meetings of the IMF-World Bank

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Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman will visit USA on October 11, 2022. During her visit, Sitharaman will attend the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) Meetings.

The Finance Minister will take part in bilateral meetings with countries like Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Bhutan, New Zealand, Egypt, Germany, Mauritius, UAE, Iran and Netherlands. She will hold one-on-one meetings with leaders & heads of OECD, European Commission and UNDP. The Finance Minister is also scheduled to meet the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and David Malpass, President, World Bank separately to discuss issues of mutual interest.

Sitharaman will deliberate on the multiplier effects created in India through the interlinkages of ‘Technology, Finance and Governance’ at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), John Hopkins University during the visit.

“During the latter part of the visit, the Union Finance Minister will attend roundtable meetings with USIBC and USISPF on themes to ‘Strengthen Investment and Innovation in India-US Corridor’ and “Investing in India’s Digital Revolution”. These meetings are aimed at showcasing India’s attractiveness as an investment destination and will have the participation of leading business leaders and investors,” the Finance Ministry stated.

Also read: Paytm sees a big jump in loan disbursals, run rate reaches Rs 34,000 cr in September

Also read: PM Modi announces new international airport for Gujarat’s Bharuch

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October 10, 2022
Opinion: Biden’s eye-opening warning | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

CNN
—

“Can you tell me where we’re headin’?” Bob Dylan asks in his 1978 song “Señor.”

Is it “Lincoln County Road or Armageddon? Seems like I been down this way before. Is there any truth in that, señor?”

Yes, we’ve been here before, at least if you take President Joe Biden at his word. At a fundraiser in New York City Thursday, Biden said, “First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going.” Referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to go nuclear in his war with Ukraine, the President observed, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

As historian Julian Zelizer wrote, “Those were unsettling words for a nation to hear from the commander in chief.” Biden referred to “the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, when the world seemed to teeter on the brink of nuclear war as the US and the Soviet Union faced off over missiles in Cuba.”

“Some planned escape routes from major cities while others stocked up on transistor radios, bottled water and radiation kits for their families. Although nobody knew it at the time, the danger was even greater than most thought as the leaders didn’t have full control of the situation. In the end, diplomacy won out, a deal was reached and disaster was averted.”

Nick Anderson/Tribune Content Agency

But the prospect of annihilating humanity in a nuclear exchange is so great that such brinksmanship should never be allowed to happen again. Surely Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev were right when they agreed in 1985 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

US national security officials privately said there was no new intelligence to indicate that Putin is moving to carry out his threat and couldn’t explain why Biden made the extraordinary statement. But its implications were clear, Zelizer argued. “This historic moment in the war between Russia and Ukraine is an important reminder that the US has let nuclear arms control fall from the agenda, and the consequences are dangerous.”

Putin’s back is against the wall as Ukraine continues to retake territory from the Russians. Peter Bergen wrote that Putin is “facing growing criticism from Russians on both the left and the right, who are taking considerable risks given the draconian penalties they can face for speaking out against his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.”

“With even his allies expressing concern, and hundreds of thousands of citizens fleeing partial mobilization, an increasingly isolated Putin has once again taken to making rambling speeches offering his distorted view of history.”

One lesson of history is that military defeat endangers dictatorial leaders. “Putin’s gamble may lead to a third dissolution of the Russian empire, which happened first in 1917 as the First World War wound down, and again in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union,” Bergen noted. “It could unfold once more as Putin’s dream of seizing Ukraine seems to be coming to an inglorious end.”

It’s striking to recall, as Frida Ghitis did, that “seven months ago, some viewed Putin as something of a genius. That myth has turned to dust. The man who helped suppress uprisings, entered wars and tried to manipulate elections across the planet now looks cornered.”

In Ukraine, “Russia’s trajectory looks like a trail of war crimes, with hundreds of bombed hospitals, schools, civilian convoys, and mass graves filled with Ukrainians. And still Ukraine is pushing ahead, is doing very well in fact, and very possibly winning this war,” wrote Ghitis.

Lisa Benson/GoComics.com

Biden took heat this summer for deciding to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and walking away with little commitment from the Saudis to expand oil production. And then last week, the Saudi regime was instrumental in OPEC+’s decision to actually cut oil production in a move that benefits it and other oil-producing states including Russia.

“So much for cozying up to the Saudis – President Joe Biden’s much-hyped fist bump with Mohammed bin Salman during a trip to the Middle East back in July has turned into something of a slap across the face from the crown prince,” wrote David A. Andelman.

In the US, gasoline prices have started rising after weeks of declines, adding to the burdens Democrats face in trying to hold onto control of Congress in the midterm elections a month from now.

Clay Jones

“The OPEC production cutbacks could – indeed, should – backfire for Saudi Arabia and its complicit partners,” wrote Andelman. “There is growing sentiment in Congress to reevaluate America’s wider relationship with Saudi Arabia and especially the vast arms sales to the kingdom.”

Higher oil prices come on top of Europe’s emerging energy crisis, with Russia sharply reducing its export of natural gas to the continent. As a result, Germany is among the nations that have instituted tough new curbs on energy use, wrote Paul Hockenos.

“Step into my Berlin office today and you’ll find everybody is wearing sweaters – I wear two, with wool socks and occasionally a scarf. … At home, my little family has sworn off baths (swift showers please), and lights are on only in the rooms we’re occupying. We’ve invested in a wool curtain inside our apartment’s front door to keep out the draft.”

“My friend Bill … hasn’t turned his heating on yet this year – no one I know has – and wears a sweater at home. He also has a new method of showering: one minute under warm water, turns it off, lathers up, and then rinses off.”

“Timing is everything,” said Garrett Hedlund in the 2011 song of that name.

“When the stars line up

And you catch a break

People think you’re lucky

But you know it’s grace…”

It works in reverse too. Just ask Linda Stewart, a New Mexico educator in her 60s who decided to retire one year into the pandemic lockdown. “Finances would be a little tight for a while, but some outside projects would supplement my income, so I felt confident I would be able to handle it,” she wrote in a new CNN Opinion series, “America’s Future Starts Now,” which explores the key issues in the midterm campaigns.

But, Stewart added, “by the end of the second year of lockdown, inflation started taking a toll and money was getting uncomfortably tight. Soon I was in the red each month, just trying to keep up. The usual suspects were groceries and gas, which meant cutting back on some of the more expensive food items and cooking meals at home.”

“I stopped driving for anything other than essentials. And with the continuing drought here in the Southwest, utility bills went through the ceiling. I cut back on watering my garden and turned the furnace down a few degrees in the winter and the air conditioning up a few in the summer. I switched to washing clothes mostly in cold water and only running the dishwasher once a week.”

The economy is the issue Americans are most concerned about, and there are no quick, easy solutions to the inflation spike. The second part of CNN Opinion’s new series was a roundup of views on how to help people cope with higher costs.

Scott Stantis/Tribune Content Agency

The Federal Reserve Bank is raising interest rates at a rapid pace to conquer inflation. The “tight labor market – and the rapid wage growth it has spurred – is causing inflation to become more entrenched,” wrote economist Gad Levanon for CNN Business Perspectives. To curb the rise in prices, “the Federal Reserve is likely to drive the economy into a recession in 2023, crushing continued job growth.”

Dana Summers/Tribune Content Agency

At least 131 people have died due to Hurricane Ian. Why was it so deadly?

The storm’s course veered south as it approached Florida and rapidly intensified, Cara Cuite and Rebecca Morss noted. “Emergency managers typically need at least 48 hours to successfully evacuate areas of southwest Florida. However, voluntary evacuation orders for Lee County were issued less than 48 hours prior to landfall, and for some areas were made mandatory just 24 hours before the storm came ashore. This was less than the amount of time outlined in Lee County’s own emergency management plan.”

“While the lack of sufficient time to evacuate was cited by some as a reason why they stayed behind, there are other factors that may also have suppressed evacuations in some of the hardest hit areas.” Few people are aware of their evacuation zone, and some websites carrying that information crashed in the leadup to the storm’s arrival, Cuite and Morss wrote.

“People need time to decide what to do, pack belongings, find a place to go and arrange how to get there, often in the midst of heavy traffic and other complications and obstacles.” Other factors: “In addition to a false sense of security from prior near-misses among some residents, others who were in the areas of Florida hardest hit by Hurricane Ian may not have had any personal experience with such powerful storms. This is likely true for the millions of people who have moved to Florida over the past few decades…”

For more:

Adam H. Sobel: Where the hurricane risk is growing

Geoff Duncan, a Republican and the current lieutenant governor of Georgia, is unsure about Herschel Walker’s prospects in the upcoming election. The Republican Senate candidate has denied reports alleging he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.

“The October surprise,” Duncan wrote, “has upended the political landscape, throwing one of the nation’s closest midterm races into turmoil five weeks before Election Day, but it never had to be this way. Just as there should not be two Democrats representing a center-right state like Georgia in the US Senate, the Republican Party should not have found its chance of regaining a Senate majority hanging on an untested and unproven first-time candidate.”

“Walker won his Senate primary not because of his political chops or policy proposals. He trounced his opponents because of his performance on the football field 40 years ago and his friendship with former President Donald Trump – neither of which are guaranteed tickets to victory anymore.”

Drew Sheneman/Tribune Content Agency

For more on politics:

SE Cupp: Herschel Walker’s ‘October Surprise’ won’t matter

Tim Kane: What the Biden administration is getting wrong on immigration

Nicole Hemmer: The Onion is right about the future of democracy

Dean Obeidallah: The single-minded goal of Trump-loving Republicans

Organic chemistry is a famously difficult course and a traditional prerequisite for students who want to go on to medical school. Maitland Jones Jr., a master of the field and textbook author, taught the course at NYU – until 82 of the 350 students taking it “signed a petition because, they said, their low scores demonstrated that his class was too hard,” Jill Filipovic noted.

Then the university fired him.

An NYU spokesman “told the (New York) Times in defense of their decision to terminate Jones’s contract that the professor had been the target of complaints about ‘dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and opacity about grading.’ It’s worth noting that according to the Times, students expressed surprise that Jones was fired, which their petition did not call for.”

Some of the student complaints may have been valid, noted Filipovic, but she added that the case “raises important questions, chief among them how much power students, who universities seem to increasingly think of as consumers (and some of whom think of themselves that way), should have in the hiring, retention and firing of professors…”

“There are real consequences … to making higher education primarily palatable to those paying tuition bills – particularly when it comes to courses like organic chemistry, which are intended to be difficult. Future medical students do in fact need a rigorous science background in order to be successful doctors someday. Whether or not Jones was an effective teacher for aspiring medical students is up for debate, but in firing him, NYU is effectively dodging questions about the line between academic rigor and student well-being with potentially life-and-death matters at stake.”

Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Kim Kardashian nearly $1.3 million for failing to disclose she was paid to promote a crypto asset, EthereumMax, noted Emily Parker.

“This case reflects a much larger problem in the crypto industry: Celebrities are using their influence to promote cryptocurrencies, a notoriously complex and risky asset class, which can lead people to invest in coins or projects that they may not understand,” Parker observed.

“New coins and projects are constantly popping up, sometimes without sufficient warnings about the risks of investing … In such a fast-changing and confusing market, how do you distinguish winners from losers? It’s easy to imagine how a confident tweet by a celebrity could have a significant impact on a new investor.”

In agreeing to the fine, Kardashian “did a favor for the cryptocurrency industry. Such a high-profile example could cause other celebrities to think twice before shilling a token on social media.”

Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency

Alejandro Mayorkas: The security risk Congress needs to take seriously

Danae Wolfe: Stomping alone won’t wipe out the spotted lanternfly

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza: Inside the prison where sunlight ceases to exist

Jeremi Suri and William Inboden: A generation of the world’s best leaders has died

Sara Stewart: ‘Dahmer’ debate is finally saying the quiet part about true crime out loud

Elisa Massimino: It’s time to shut down Guantanamo

Pete Brown: What ‘fancy a pint?’ really means

AND…

Rich Fury/Getty Images/FILE`

Until recently, the late-night television formula ruled, as Bill Carter noted. “On the air after 11 p.m. with a charismatic host, some comedy, a desk, a guest or two, maybe a band and then ‘Good night, everybody!’” Late-night shows seemed to be holding their own despite the rise of cord-cutting and the move to streaming.

But that’s changing, as Trevor Noah’s decision to give up hosting “The Daily Show” suggested. Carter wrote, “What many people watch now is not television: It’s whatever-vision, entertainment by any means on any device. What’s on late night is now often seen on subscriptions – and not late at night.”

Noah is leaving on a high note “after a seven-year run, marked by an impressive body of comedy work and growing acclaim,” Carter observed. In succeeding Jon Stewart as the show’s host, Noah “had a different beat in his head from the start. He wanted to refashion the show with a wider comedy vision, one looking more out at the world, instead of purely in at the United States, all informed by Noah’s South African-born global perspective.”

“It was a wise choice. Following Stewart was always going to be a potentially crippling challenge. Noah took it on and remade the show to his own specifications. One major sign of that was how strikingly diverse the show became.”

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October 9, 2022
OPEC output cut ‘unhelpful and unwise,’ US Treasury chief says

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The oil cartel OPEC’s choice to pare back oil supply will harm the global economy and especially developing countries, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Financial Times in an interview published Sunday.

“I think OPEC’s decision is unhelpful and unwise — it’s uncertain what impact it will end up having, but certainly, it’s something that, to me, did not seem appropriate, under the circumstances we face,” Yellen said, adding that “we’re very worried about developing countries and the problems they face.”

The cartel of 13 oil-producing countries on Wednesday agreed to reduce production by 2 million barrels a day as of November, in the context of an already tight market and rising world inflation in part caused by high energy prices.

OPEC’s move marks a victory for Russia against the EU and the U.S. — Russia’s a major oil producer and an OPEC+ country that cooperates with the cartel. Ever since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the West has been imposing economic sanctions against Russia, including on its oil sector, and encouraging other countries around the world to follow suit. Despite this effort, Moscow continues to sell its oil to countries like India, China and Turkey.

OPEC took the decision despite a flurry of trips by EU and U.S. leaders to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to try to convince the country’s crown prince and new Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman to ramp up oil production to fight inflation.

The world oil price already started to rise after the announcement on Wednesday, moving from around $86 to over $93 per barrel.

Meanwhile, Moscow congratulated “the truly balanced, thoughtful and planned work” of OPEC countries which served to “oppose the actions of the United States,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a TV interview broadcasted on Sunday.

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Sarah Anne Aarup

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October 9, 2022
3 tied for lead after 1st round of LIV Golf in Thailand

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BANGKOK, Thailand — Richard Bland, Branden Grace and Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra upstaged their more-illustrious opponents on Friday to shoot 7-under 65s and share the lead after the first round of the LIV Golf Invitational-Bangkok.

Marc Leishman and Ian Poulter were a stroke behind while Kim Sihwan, Brooks Koepka and Morgan Jediah were among those two behind in the 54-hole event.

The tournament is being played on the new Stonehill Golf Club north of downtown Bangkok. The course was created by American designer Kyle Phillips and opened this year.

Dustin Johnson, who leads the money list with just over $12.5 million in five events, shot 70. British Open champion Cameron Smith, who won the last LIV event in Chicago in mid-September, shot 72.

It’s the first time LIV Golf is being played outside the United States since its inaugural event in early June near London.

Before the start of play, players learned that they still won’t accrue ranking points on the LIV series. The Official World Golf Ranking said in a statement Thursday that it had denied the MENA Tour’s request to immediately add the Saudi-funded series to its schedule.

The OWGR said the MENA Tour did not give it sufficient notice and there would not be time to finish the review ahead of the Bangkok tournament and next week’s event in Saudi Arabia.

LIV Golf created an alliance with the little-known MENA Tour, which hasn’t run a tournament of its own since March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The MENA Tour stands for Middle East and North Africa and is a developmental tour that has been getting the bare minimum of world ranking points since 2016. It has 54-hole events with a 36-hole cut, offering a $75,000 purse.

“I don’t think it really was much of a response. I just hate when you sit on the fence. Just pick a side,” Koepka said Friday. “If it’s yes or no, just pick one. So I’m not a big fan of that.”

Bryson DeChambeau, who shot 69 Friday, said the decision by the rankings group was only “delaying the inevitable.”

“We’ve hit every mark in their criteria, so for us not to get points is kind of crazy with having the top — at least I believe we have the top players in the world,” DeChambeau said. “We certainly believe that there’s enough that are in the top 50, and we deserve to be getting world ranking points. When they keep holding it back, they’re going to just keep playing a waiting game.”

———

More AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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October 7, 2022
White House left looking for answers after OPEC+ announces oil production cuts | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

The OPEC+ decision to dramatically cut its oil output targets has left the White House grappling with a complex – and potentially damaging – mix of geopolitical and domestic challenges with few easy answers.

President Joe Biden now faces the reality that an already complex and tenuous bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia has deeply fractured, the Western effort to isolate and shrink Russia’s war effort has taken a direct hit and the US economy and political picture have both grown more fragile.

“Disappointment. We’re looking at what alternatives we may have” to bring down oil prices, Biden told reporters when asked his reaction to the OPEC+ news.

“There’s a lot of alternatives. We haven’t made up our mind yet,” he added.

Biden’s advisers are now re-doubling efforts to find policy and diplomatic options to address the unwelcome surprise.

“We’re going to work to identify the tools that we have to ensure that organizations like OPEC that assign quotas to their members of how much to produce are not – have a muted and less of an impact on American consumers, and quite frankly, on the global economy,” Amos Hochstein, Biden’s top energy envoy, told Bianna Golodryga on CNN’s “New Day” Thursday.

The full scale of the fallout from Saudi Arabia-led oil cartel’s decision may not be apparent for months or longer, officials say. But they are also keenly aware just how many acutely important elements of the administration’s foreign and domestic agenda the production cut spills directly into.

Biden administration officials acknowledge they’re in a very difficult position over their relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called OPEC’s move to cut oil production both “shortsighted and disappointing,” and said the administration is reviewing a “number of response options” when it comes to US-Saudi relations.

“We will not do anything that would infringe on our interests, that’s first and foremost, what will guide us,” Blinken said during a news conference in Peru on Thursday. “We will keep all of those interests in mind and consult closely with all of the relevant stakeholders as we decide on any steps going forward.”

There is clearly a tacit effort underway to evaluate ways to respond to the OPEC+ decision to cut back oil production by 2 million barrels per day. But as has been laid bare repeatedly over the course of Biden’s time in office, the power dynamics between the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are simply in a different place now than at any earlier point due to the economic and energy pressures tied to Russia’s invasion.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made abundantly clear he feels no need to be the junior actor, and his overt and explicit moves toward China and Russia have ensured there is no subtlety in his approach.

On a purely oil market basis, the Saudis prize stability over anything else – stability the OPEC+ configuration has provided after damaging price wars and the volatility of the pandemic. Moscow, of course, is the key player in that configuration and it’s notable that beneath the output cut, an extension of the OPEC+ arrangement was also approved on Wednesday.

Still, while administration officials always viewed Biden’s trip to Jeddah – which resulted in the diplomatic fist bump seen around the world – as a critical regional security move, the cartel’s willingness to move in ways so obviously detrimental to US interests has reverberated across the administration. Biden again defended the trip Thursday, saying, “The trip was not essentially for oil. The trip was about the Middle East and about Israel and rationalization of positions.”

“It’s not always about us, we get it,” one US official said. “But they’re just as aware of the perceptions and implications of this move as we are.”

The most obvious lever for the US to pull is security related – it’s far and away the biggest leverage point. But the ramifications of any moves on that front are much broader than the bilateral relationship, officials note, and would directly undercut more than a year of intensive work to establish a coherent regional security posture.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s statement on Wednesday that it “is clear OPEC+ is aligning with Russia” and its war effort was as intentional as it was blunt. Hochstein, in his CNN interview, reiterated that the OPEC+ decision was a “huge mistake” and “the wrong thing to do” amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and high energy prices, saying that Russia and Saudi Arabia are “working together.”

US officials had previously been cautious about directly criticizing the obvious dance Saudi Arabia and others in the region have conducted with Moscow. That posture is gone.

Biden administration officials, according to people with knowledge, made very clear to the Saudis in the days leading up the move that US rhetoric would change dramatically and they would open the door to new options to respond to a major cut. The specifics of those options were left somewhat ambiguous intentionally. But the warning was there.

One notable line in the White House statement issued Wednesday by National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and national security adviser Jake Sullivan statement was the idea of working with Congress on legislation related to OPEC.

It’s a reference to a bill that would remove sovereign immunity from antitrust suits, opening the door for the US to sue cartel members. The White House has been cool to the idea due to the very real concern it would launch a price war with the market’s biggest players that would only serve to hurt US consumers. But just cracking the door open to looking at it is notable – and underscores the scale of the anger inside the West Wing.

The legislative reference underscores a key piece how the response will play out in the weeks ahead – the White House has made its statement, which – in a world of cautious diplo-speak – was sharply critical. Now officials have said they are perfectly comfortable letting congressional Democrats rail on the Saudis on their behalf, something they expect to only escalate in the days ahead given the convergence of geopolitical and domestic political factors.

The blistering response from Capitol Hill has the potential to create some the kind of pressure that could create space to pursue actions the administration has been wary of pursuing up to this point.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, for instance, tweeted, “I thought the whole point of selling arms to the Gulf States despite their human rights abuses, nonsensical Yemen War, working against US interests in Libya, Sudan, etc, was that when an international crisis came, the Gulf could choose America over Russia/China.”

The biggest focus for the White House now on oil is on the domestic front. Biden’s top energy and economic advisers met privately with oil executives last week and discussions between officials and industry players have continued this week. Another meeting is likely soon as they continue to search for options to boost US production.

While several options have been floated – including some that infuriate the industry, like potential curbs on exports – it remains unclear whether the White House is ready to move forward on any of them.

A question being weighed now is if OPEC+’s decision changes that dynamic at all in a relationship between the White House and industry that has ping-ponged between clear animosity to cooler heads prevailing and back toward palpable tension over the course of the last several months.

The White House rhetorical reversal hinting at the potential for new Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases, a complete 180-degree turn in less than 24 hours, was notable even if it didn’t signal anything concrete.

What it did signal, however, was a clear message to markets that the option was, in fact, on the table.

Blinken on Thursday once again highlighted what the administration has done to boost oil production in the US.

“We’ve taken a number of steps over the last months to try and ensure that that’s the case, including releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, increasing significantly our production. Oil production is up in the United States by about 500,000 barrels a day,” he said.

Blinken also added that the administration is “looking at other steps that we can take to ensure that there is adequate supply to meet to meet global demand.”

The final release of 10 million from Biden’s announced 180 million barrel release over six months is still scheduled for November, even though the actual total barrels released will fall under the full amount Biden initially targeted. Cracking the door open on additional releases was an effort to signal there is a view inside the White House that there are still metaphorical bullets in the chamber if they need them.

One key point to remember amid the hand-wringing: Predictions of specific price increases at the pump are a fool’s errand.

“I believe it will have less of an impact in the United States and far more of an impact on lower-income countries around the world,” Hochstein said.

The market has been pricing in the output cut for several days. A key element of the output cut is that nearly all OPEC+ members have been missing their production targets for months. So “2 million barrels per day” is actually far less than that from a production basis.

In other words, there are a myriad of factors that drive retail prices – such as in California, where soaring gas prices over the last two weeks were in large part due to a mess of refinery issues – and no single answer to the range of new complications White House officials are now facing.

Biden’s message, behind his disappointment with the production cut, was clear cut, according to Hochstein.

“The President is still instructing us to work, to do whatever we can,” he said.

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October 6, 2022
White House says Biden’s Saudi trip wasn’t a waste as he lambastes OPEC+’s ‘shortsighted’ decision to cut oil output | CNN Politics

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CNN
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President Joe Biden is “disappointed” the Saudi-led OPEC+ oil cartel agreed to cut output by 2 million barrels per day, the White House said Wednesday, as the threat of rising gas prices looms weeks ahead of critical midterm elections.

The decision by the grouping of major oil producers rebuffed heavy lobbying from US administration officials and prompted Biden to say he was concerned about the move. It reversed a small increase in output OPEC+ announced shortly after Biden visited Saudi Arabia for a conference in July.

Still, the White House insisted that visit was not a “waste of time,” even as it sharply criticized the decision to cut production.

“The President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” said two of Biden’s top aides, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, in a statement.

“At a time when maintaining a global supply of energy is of paramount importance, this decision will have the most negative impact on lower- and middle-income countries that are already reeling from elevated energy prices,” the two advisers wrote.

The administration will “consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices,” the statement read, without specifying which actions are under consideration dampen the oil cartel’s sway.

Slashing oil production just ahead of November’s midterm elections poses a potential political problem for the President, who has touted this summer’s decreasing gas prices as he works to promote his agenda. The average gas price has been rising nationally again in recent days, according to AAA.

Earlier this year, Biden announced a major release of barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to alleviate pump prices. On Tuesday, the White House said it was not considering additional releases beyond the 180 million previously announced.

But after OPEC+ announced its decision on Wednesday, the White House said Biden would “continue to direct SPR releases as necessary,” apparently cracking open the door again to potential releases.

Departing the White House on Wednesday, Biden said he was concerned about the possibility of a significant cut to production.

“I need to see what the detail is. I am concerned, it is unnecessary,” he said in response to a question about the OPEC+ decision as he departed the White House for Florida, where he was set to tour storm damage.

The international cartel of oil producers held a critical meeting Wednesday, where energy ministers decided to slash production by 2 million barrels per day, the biggest cut since the start of the pandemic.

For the past several days, Biden’s senior-most energy, economic and foreign policy officials had been lobbying their foreign counterparts in Middle Eastern allied countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to vote against cutting oil production.

When he visited Saudi Arabia in July, Biden sought to make clear it wasn’t solely to ask the oil-rich kingdom to increase its oil output. After decrying the regime’s human rights record as a candidate, Biden fist-bumped the powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who US intelligence has said masterminded the murder of Saudi journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi.

Speaking on Fox News shortly after the decision was announced, National Security Council communications coordinator John Kirby said the oil cartel was “adjusting back their numbers down a little bit” after making a small increase after Biden’s visit.

“OPEC+ has been saying and telling the word they’re actually producing 3.5 million more barrels than they actually are. So in some ways this announced decrease really gets them back into more align with actual production,” Kirby said, noting there hadn’t yet been dramatic shifts in the price of oil.

“We have to see how it plays out over the long term,” he said.

Kirby said Biden’s visit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a regional conference “was not about oil.”

“It was about larger national strategic and national interest goals throughout the region to try to foster more integrated cooperative region,” he said.

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October 5, 2022
White House launches last ditch effort to dissuade OPEC from cutting oil production to avoid a ‘total disaster’ | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

The Biden administration has launched a full-scale pressure campaign in a last-ditch effort to dissuade Middle Eastern allies from dramatically cutting oil production, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The push comes ahead of Wednesday’s crucial meeting of OPEC+, the international cartel of oil producers that is widely expected to announce a significant cut to output in an effort to raise oil prices. That in turn would cause US gasoline prices to rise at a precarious time for the Biden administration, just five weeks before the midterm elections.

For the past several days, President Joe Biden’s senior-most energy, economic and foreign policy officials have been enlisted to lobby their foreign counterparts in Middle Eastern allied countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to vote against cutting oil production.

Members of the Saudi-led oil cartel and its allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, are expected to announce production cuts potentially up to more than one million barrels per day. That would be the largest cut since the beginning of the pandemic and could lead to a dramatic spike in oil prices.

Some of the draft talking points circulated by the White House to the Treasury Department on Monday that were obtained by CNN framed the prospect of a production cut as a “total disaster” and warned that it could be taken as a “hostile act.”

“It’s important everyone is aware of just how high the stakes are,” said a US official of what was framed as a broad administration effort that is expected to continue in the lead up to the Wednesday OPEC+ meeting.

The White House is “having a spasm and panicking,” another US official said, describing this latest administration effort as “taking the gloves off.” According to a White House official, the talking points were being drafted and exchanged by staffers and not approved by White House leadership or used with foreign partners.

In a statement to CNN, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said, “We’ve been clear that energy supply should meet demand to support economic growth and lower prices for consumers around the world and we will continue to talk with our partners about that.”

For Biden, a dramatic cut in oil production could not come at a worse time. The administration has for months engaged in an intensive domestic and foreign policy effort to mitigate soaring energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That work appeared to pay off, with US gasoline prices falling for almost 100 days in a row.

But with just a month to go before the critical midterm elections, US gasoline prices have begun to creep up again, posing a political risk the White House is desperately trying to avoid. As US officials have moved to gauge potential domestic options to head off gradual increases over the last several weeks, the news of major OPEC+ action presents a particularly acute challenge.

Watson, the NSC spokesperson declined to comment on the midterms, saying instead, “Thanks to the President’s efforts, energy prices have declined sharply from their highs and American consumers are paying far less at the pump.”

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s top energy envoy, has played a leading role in the lobbying effort, which has been far more extensive than previously reported amid extreme concern in the White House over the potential cut. Hochstein, along with top national security official Brett McGurk and the administration’s special envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking, traveled to Jeddah late last month to discuss a range of energy and security issues as a follow up to Biden’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia in July.

Officials across the administration’s economic and foreign policy teams have also been involved with reaching out to OPEC governments as part of the latest effort to stave off a production cut.

The White House has asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to make the case personally to some Gulf state finance ministers, including from Kuwait and the UAE, and try to convince them that a production cut would be extremely damaging to the global economy. The US has argued that in the long-run a cut in oil production would create more downward pressure on prices – the opposite of what a significant cut would be designed to accomplish. Their logic is that “cutting right now would increase risks of inflation,” lead to higher interest rates and ultimately a greater risk of recession.

“There is great political risk to your reputation and relations with the United States and the west if you move forward,” the White House draft talking points suggested Yellen communicate to her foreign counterparts.

A senior US official acknowledged that the administration has been lobbying the Saudi-led coalition for weeks to try to convince them not to cut oil production.

It comes less than three months after President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia and met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a trip that was driven in part by a desire to convince Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, to increase oil production which would help bring down the then-skyrocketing gas prices.

When OPEC+ agreed a few weeks later to a modest 100,000 barrel increase in production, critics argued Biden had gotten little out of the trip.

The trip was billed as a meeting with regional leaders about issues critical to US national security, including Iran, Israel and Yemen. It was criticized for its lack of results and for rehabbing the image of the crown prince who had been directly blamed by Biden for orchestrating the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

In the months leading up to the meeting, Biden’s top aides for the Middle East and energy, McGurk and Hochstein, shuttled between Washington and Saudi Arabia planning and coordinating the visit.

One diplomatic official in the region described the US campaign to block production cuts as less of a hard sell, and more of an effort to underscore a critical international moment given the economic fragility and ongoing war in Ukraine. Though another source familiar with the discussions told CNN it was described by a diplomat from one of the countries approached as “desperate.”

A source familiar with the outreach says a call was planned with the UAE but the effort was rebuffed by Kuwait. Kuwait’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did Saudi Arabia’s. The UAE embassy declined to comment.

Publicly, the White House has cautiously avoided weighing in on the possibility of a dramatic oil production cut.

“We are not members of OPEC+, and so I don’t want to get ahead of what could potentially come out of that meeting,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday. The US focus, Jean-Pierre said, remains “taking every step to ensure markets are sufficiently supplied to meet demand for a growing global economy.”

OPEC+ members are weighing a more dramatic cut due to what has been a precipitous decline in prices, which have dropped sharply to below $90 per barrel in recent months.

Hanging over Wednesday’s OPEC+ meeting in Vienna will also be the looming oil price cap that European nations intend to impose on Russian oil exports as punishment for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many OPEC+ members, not only Russia, have expressed unhappiness with the prospect of a price cap because of the precedent it could set for consumers, rather than the market, to dictate the price of oil.

Included in the White House talking points to Treasury was a US proposal that if OPEC+ decides against a cut this week the US will announce a buyback of up to 200 million barrels to refill its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), an emergency stockpile of petroleum that the US has been tapping into this year to help lower oil prices.

The administration has made it clear to OPEC+ for months, the senior US official said, that the US is willing to buy OPEC’s oil to replenish the SPR. The idea has been to convey to OPEC+ that the US “won’t leave them hanging dry” if they invest money in production, the official said, and therefore, that prices won’t collapse if global demand decreases.

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October 4, 2022
OPEC+ to consider oil cut of over than 1 million barrels per day

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OPEC+ will consider an oil output cut of more than a million barrels per day (bpd) next week, OPEC sources said on Sunday.

Omar Marques | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images

OPEC+ will consider an oil output cut of more than a million barrels per day (bpd) next week, OPEC sources said on Sunday, in what would be the biggest move yet since the Covid-19 pandemic to address oil market weakness.

The meeting will take place on Oct. 5 against the backdrop of falling oil prices and months of severe market volatility which prompted top OPEC+ producer, Saudi Arabia, to say the group could cut production.

OPEC+, which combines OPEC countries and allies such as Russia, has refused to raise output to lower oil prices despite pressure from major consumers, including the United States, to help the global economy.

Prices have nevertheless fallen sharply in the last month due to fears about the global economy and a rally in the U.S. dollar after the Federal Reserves raised rates.

A significant production cut is poised to anger the United States, which has been putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to continue pumping more to help oil prices soften further and reduce revenues for Russia as the West seeks to punish Moscow for sending troops to Ukraine.

The West accuses Russia of invading Ukraine, but the Kremlin calls it a special military operation.

Saudi Arabia has not condemned Moscow’s actions amid difficult relations with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.

Last week, a source familiar with the Russian thinking said Moscow would like to see OPEC+ cutting 1 million bpd or one percent of global supply.

That would be the biggest cut since 2020 when OPEC+ reduced output by a record 10 million bpd as demand crashed due to the Covid pandemic. The group spent the next two years unwinding those record cuts.

On Sunday, the sources said the cut could exceed 1 million bpd. One of the sources suggested cuts could also include a voluntary additional reduction of production by Saudi Arabia.

OPEC+ will meet in person in Vienna for the first time since March 2020.

Analysts and OPEC watchers such as UBS and JPMorgan have suggested in recent days a cut of around 1 million bpd was on the cards and could help arrest the price decline.

“$90 oil is non-negotiable for the OPEC+ leadership, hence they will act to safeguard this price floor,” said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM.

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October 2, 2022
UN chief urges Yemen’s warring sides to renew expiring truce

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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. chief is strongly urging Yemen’s warring parties to not only renew but expand a truce that expires Sunday, saying it has brought the longest period of relative calm since the conflict began in 2014.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels should prioritize the national interests of the Yemeni people and “choose peace for good.”

His statement followed a stark warning Tuesday from the U.N. envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, that the risk of a return to fighting “is real.”

Yemen’s brutal civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.

The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and over the years turned into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia, which backs the government, and Iran, which supports the Houthis. More than 150,000 people have been killed, including over 14,500 civilians.

Both sides accepted the U.N.-brokered truce for two months at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on April 2. It has been extended twice, and Grundberg and the secretary-general have been pushing both sides for a longer extension to try to start negotiations toward ending the conflict.

“Over the past six months,” Guterres said, “the government of Yemen and the Houthis have taken important and bold steps towards peace by agreeing to, and twice renewing, a nationwide truce negotiated by the United Nations.”

With the Sunday deadline looming, Guterres strongly urged the parties to expand the duration and terms of the truce in line with a proposal presented by Grundberg that has not been made public.

Nabil Jamel, a government negotiator, said the U.N. proposal includes ways to pay civil servants in Houthi-held territories and reopen roads of blockaded cities, including Taiz.

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October 1, 2022
The Washington Outsider, Wesam Basindowah’s NGO Coalition Reveal Houthi Land Mine Disaster in Yemen During UNHRC Session

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Press Release
–

Jun 24, 2022

GENEVA, June 24, 2022 (Newswire.com)
–
On the sidelines of the 50th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Dr. Wesam Basindowah’s Yemen Coalition of Independent Women, with co-organizer The Washington Outsider, whose Editor-in-Chief Irina Tsukerman participated in the seminar, and along with other international human rights organizations, revealed the humanitarian disaster in Yemen unleashed by the widespread use of land mines by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Irina Tsukerman started the discussion by explaining that the Houthis are considered some of the most prolific offensive land mine users in the world, having planted between a million and a half and over 2 million land mines all over the country from the Northern provinces to the borders with Saudi Arabia since the civil broke out with the start of the Houthi uprising in 2014. As other participants also noted, many of these land mines are illegal anti-personnel land mines planted in civilian areas, disguised as rocks, toys, or other civilian objects which maximizes the number of civilian casualties in violation of international laws, and complicates the demining process.

Tsukerman had interviewed demining experts from MASAM, a civilian project with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre, which had removed hundreds of thousands of mines since 2018. From the start of the war, KSA has contributed approximately $20 billion to humanitarian aid in Yemen.

Tsukerman explained that Houthis fought numerous wars with Yemen’s government before the current civil war and grew in sophistication thanks to training from Iran’s and Hezbullah’s military advisers. Iran, Tsukerman asserted, views Yemen as a gateway to Saudi Arabia; controlling the Two Holy Mosques is at the epicenter of the Islamic Republic’s goal to export the Islamic Revolution, becoming the only recognized religious authority. The land mines would help clear the way.

The land mines progressed from old Soviet mines and locally made simple IEDs to sophisticated technology imported from Iran or developed on the ground, similar to ordnances recovered after use by Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon. Since the start of the current war over 9000 Yemenis were reported killed from IED blasts with hundreds injured each year. Even if the war comes to an end, due to lack of cooperation from the Houthis in mapping the land mine sites, the humanitarian disaster may persist for decades, Tsukerman added.

The panel recommended sanctioning Houthis, increasing international demining cooperation, building more hospitals and artificial limb centers in remote areas, providing psychological care and rehabilitation for victims, especially for children, providing safety training for volunteers, disrupting Iran’s efforts in providing land mine materials, providing safe passage and humanitarian assistance to communities where facilities have become inaccessible, and increasing coordination among demining groups.

Media Contact: Irina Tsukerman
917-755-5977

Source: The Washington Outsider

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June 24, 2022
The Washington Outsider’s Irina Tsukerman Moderates UNHRC 50th Panel: Yemen Coalition of Independent Women Exposes Houthi Abuses as Regional and Global Security Risks

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Press Release
–

Jun 21, 2022

GENEVA, June 21, 2022 (Newswire.com)
–
Gathering on the sidelines of the 50th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the Yemen Coalition of Independent Women and its partner organizations, including The Washington Outsider, addressed the nexus between the human rights violations by the Iran-backed Houthi militias (Ansar Allah) in Yemen and the security risks to the region and the international community. At the June 17 symposium on human rights abuses in Yemen, Senior Director for Countering Extremism Dr. Hans Jacob Schindler discussed the Houthi threats to regional and global security by the use of ballistic missiles against Yemen’s residential areas and displacement camps, and attacks on economic infrastructure and vital installations in Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Addressing Iran’s arming, training, funding, and political support for Ansar Allah and the Houthi connections to other Iranian proxies in the region, Dr. Schindler confirmed that the Houthis had received material support and training from Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, and that Yemen had become a testing ground for Iran and Hezbollah. Dr. Schindler asserted that the Houthis represented a real threat to international navigation in the Red Sea by transforming public ports into operational centers through which international shipping lines, commercial and humanitarian vessels were targeted, booby-trapped, and pirated.

In the June 19th seminar on Houthi violations against media freedom, Irina Tsukerman, who moderated the panel, stated that Houthis use cyberspace to raise funds and to block anti-Houthi websites, and to spy on citizens. She added that the Houthis used communications and information technology and infrastructure they controlled to support military operations. The Houthi punished the Yemeni people and cut off internet service in 2018 from 80% of the area of Yemen. The Houthi control of the main internet provider in the country gave them information monopoly and frustrated resistance. Tsukerman stressed that Houthi control of the internet isolates the Yemeni population from the rest of the world, citing the importance of helping Yemen restore internet access and end militia control as a necessary priority to end the war.

Keith Boyfield, Senior Fellow at the Euro-Gulf Information Centre, addressed the potential environmental disaster resulting from the ticking time bomb of the trapped FSO Safer oil carrier near the Hodeidah port. He also spoke of child soldier recruitment and hate indoctrination, which prolongs the conflict, creating generations of dedicated fighters.

The seminar also discussed the impact of the arbitrary detentions, torture, and assaults on journalists, the bans of media outlets, and the hacking and cell phone searches and seizures, as well as the impact on information flow about security and on digital rights in Yemen.

Media contact: Irina Tsukerman

sicat222@gmail.com

Source: The Washington Outsider

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June 21, 2022
Golf’s new Saudi deal presents questionable political, business and sporting realities | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

The PGA Tour once advertised its brightest stars with the catch phrase “These guys are good.” A better slogan might now be “These guys are even richer.”

In a bombshell announcement so staggering that many golf fans thought it was fake at first, the venerable PGA Tour unveiled a partnership Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, the financier of its sworn rival LIV Golf – a breakaway circuit that split the sport and seeded feuds among its top players.

The deal means that the PGA Tour – built on the image of quintessentially American Arnold Palmer, who epitomized post World War II US values – will now rest atop a pile of money put up by the regime that the US blamed for the murdering and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, that was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001, attack, and that has frequently been condemned by Washington for infringing women’s rights.

It is beyond doubt that the new reality of pro-golf will mean a better spectacle for fans since it will end the split between the two rival tours and will also fold in the DP World Tour (formerly known as the European tour) and mean the brightest stars will play one another more often.

For many sports fans in the US and elsewhere, that’s just fine. They like to plop down on the couch and watch their favorite golfer on the back nine on Sunday or their Gulf-owned Premier League team on TV. Who can begrudge them one oasis free from bitter, tribal modern politics?

And the deal is also undeniably a great piece of business, assuming PGA Tour players accept it. Global golfers stand to win a lot more money, various tours will be invigorated and Saudi Arabia’s government and its ruthless leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), get to be associated with one of the planet’s most prestigious year-round sporting properties. And all pending litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was also mutually ended under the new agreement.

But for others, Tuesday’s peace deal on the links raises painful moral issues. It also exposes top PGA leaders – who had blasted golfers who defected to LIV – to accusations of hypocrisy and reflects the way modern professional sports are hostage to the highest bidders. This can only pose uncomfortable questions to fans whose values and history clash with those of distant and sometimes politically dicey entities who effectively own their teams and top stars.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, for instance, had some explaining to do – not least to the tour’s players gathered at the Canadian Open this week after many tweeted that they had no advance notice of the deal. Monahan had played the 9/11 card last year at the same event, saying that two families that were close to him had lost loved ones in the worst terror attack on American soil, adding, “I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

Now Monahan stands to be the effective supremo of global golf, save for the four majors – the sport’s most prestigious tournaments – aided by a gusher of Saudi cash.

9/11 Families United effectively accused Monahan of using the tragedy as leverage in a business deal to reunite golf. He “co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sports washing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation,” the group said in a statement. “But now the PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation so that Americans and the world will forget how the Kingdom spent their billions of dollars before 9/11 to fund terrorism, spread their vitriolic hatred of Americans, and finance al Qaeda and the murder of our loved ones.”

Monahan was asked about his reversal after what he said was a “heated” meeting with PGA Tour players on Tuesday.

“I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” he said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that’s trying to compete for the PGA TOUR and our players.”

Major champions who jumped to the rival circuit last year like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Cam Smith might also now wonder whether their PGA tour brethren will face the same grilling over human rights that they had to endure at the time.

One very famous golfer was delighted by the deal and seemed keen to claim some reflected credit – former President Donald Trump. The current front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination associated himself with LIV after the PGA Tour and other golf governing bodies distanced themselves from him over his radioactive political reputation. Trump has hosted several tournaments at his courses for LIV – a circuit that sits well with his record of refusing to sever links with the Saudis over the murder of Khashoggi in 2018, reasoning that the Saudis were great customers of the US.

“A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf. Congrats to all!!!” Trump wrote in block capital letters on his Truth Social platform.

Some defenders of LIV golfers have pointed out that the players were only making a choice to prioritize personal interests over moral ones in partnering with the Saudis – a calculus that mirrored decades of US foreign policy. Indeed, President Joe Biden had called on the 2020 campaign trail for the kingdom to be treated as a “pariah” because of Khashoggi’s murder only to travel to the kingdom as president to fist-bump MBS when he needed a spike in oil price production to bring down American gas prices.

On Tuesday, after the LIV/PGA partnership was announced, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down for talks with the Crown Prince in Riyadh.

The idea that politics and sport shouldn’t mix has always been quaint. The Olympics and the World Cup are two of the planet’s most political spectacles after all. And modern sport has long run on money as monster TV rights contracts translate into huge salaries for top soccer players, Formula One Drivers, NBA stars and the top names in other sports.

But Tuesday’s LIV/PGA Tour agreement lays bare questions of morality so starkly precisely because of the way golf has sold itself. In a sport where players call penalties on themselves, and commentators idolize top players in whispered tones as paragons of gentlemanly conduct, patriotism and family values, the origin of the sport’s new financial lifeline is glaring.

The PGA Tour and Saudi partnership may be the most prominent example yet of the phenomenon known as sports washing, whereby an authoritarian nation seeking to buff up its image – despite serious criticism over its political system and human rights performance – woos the world’s top sporting stars. China was accused of such an agenda with its 2008 and 2022 Summer and Winter Olympics, where attempts at political activism largely fizzled under its repressive rule. The Qatar World Cup last year was another example of a nation that used its financial muscle to present a new image to the world. Various controversies during the tournament over LGBTQ rights and the plight of workers who built the stadiums undercut global governing body FIFA’s pretensions to inclusion.

The Saudis, Qataris and others are using their oil wealth to buy themselves a foothold among the world’s most powerful nations and to create tourism, entertainment and sporting legacies to sustain them when their reserves of carbon energy are depleted.

This mirrors a global shift in power and especially financial muscle – from the capitals of Western Europe to new epicenters in the emerging economies of the Middle East, India and China. Soccer, like golf, is taking its share of the cash. Traditional working class football clubs knitted into their communities for decades in the UK, for example, now suddenly find themselves owned by foreign energy magnates. Premier League giant Manchester City was bought by a United Arab Emirates-led group. And Newcastle United is owned by a Saudi Arabia-led consortium, forcing fans to consider (or not) the ethical dimensions of their support for their hometown clubs. And global cricket has been transformed by the Indian Premier League, which pays lavish salaries in a shortened form of the game.

One of the top names in soccer, Cristiano Ronaldo, is playing out the twilight of a glorious career spent at Europe’s top clubs in the up-and-coming Saudi league for a massive salary. And on Tuesday, Saudi team Al-Ittihad announced the signing of Real Madrid and French forward Karim Benzema, completing a sporting double whammy for the kingdom.

There are as many sporting questions about the PGA Tour/LIV Golf partnership that remain unanswered. The partnership combines the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. A spokesman for the PGA tour told CNN that the deal is not a merger.

“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” Monahan said, describing a “transformational partnership” that would “benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.”

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, told CNBC he expected the partnership to be finalized within weeks and revealed, in a stunning move, that he had told LIV figurehead and Hall of Famer Greg Norman about the deal only moments before going on air.

LIV lured some of the PGA Tour’s top stars with massive signing bonuses and huge purses at substantially fewer events than the PGA tour, prompting the premier US circuit to unveil its own select “designated events” with upped prize money. The two sides were locked in bitter legal battles that have now been resolved.

It remains unclear, however, what steps LIV stars will have to take to potentially be able to return to events like The Players Championship, currently hosted on the PGA tour from which they were banned.

Then there is the question of how current PGA Tour members will respond.

Former British Open Champion Collin Morikawa tweeted, “I love finding out morning news on Twitter.”

The sudden announcement also did not specify what would happen to LIV tour events, which have struggled to draw a strong TV audience, beyond this season. Monahan’s announcement did hint that the new entity was committed to the new format of team events that has been introduced by LIV, to compliment golf’s traditional reliance on individual tournaments.

The golfer with the widest smile on Tuesday was probably Mickelson. The three-time Masters champion took the most heat for deserting the PGA tour for a reported massive payday, and was one of the most outspoken supporters of LIV – a breakaway he argued was a way to revolutionize the structure of professional golf and to secure more rewards for players.

Mickelson was also open about the reality of partnering with the Saudis, calling them “scary m*therf**kers to get involved with,” in an interview with golf journalist Alan Shipnuck that he later claimed was off the record. Shipnuck has written that he offered Mickelson no such agreement.

On Tuesday, Mickelson simply tweeted: “Awesome day today,” with a smiley sunshine emoji.

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April 12, 2021
Donald Trump Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at the life of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

Birth date: June 14, 1946

Birth place: New York, New York

Birth name: Donald John Trump

Father: Fred Trump, real estate developer

Mother: Mary (Macleod) Trump

Marriages: Melania (Knauss) Trump (January 22, 2005-present); Marla (Maples) Trump (December 1993-June 1999, divorced); Ivana (Zelnicek) Trump (1977-1990, divorced)

Children: with Melania Trump: Barron, March 20, 2006; with Marla Maples: Tiffany, October 13, 1993; with Ivana Trump: Eric, 1984; Ivanka, October 30, 1981; Donald Jr., December 31, 1977

Education: Attended Fordham University; University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance, B.S. in Economics, 1968

As Trump evolved from real estate developer to reality television star, he turned his name into a brand. Licensed Trump products have included board games, steaks, cologne, vodka, furniture and menswear.

He has portrayed himself in cameo appearances in movies and on television, including “Zoolander,” “Sex and the City” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” was first used by Ronald Reagan while he was running against President Jimmy Carter.

For details on investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, visit 2016 Presidential Election Investigation Fast Facts.

1970s – After college, works with his father on apartment complexes in Queens and Brooklyn.

1973 – Trump and his father are named in a Justice Department lawsuit alleging Trump property managers violated the Fair Housing Act by turning away potential African American tenants. The Trumps deny the company discriminates and file a $100 million countersuit, which is later dismissed. The case is settled in 1975, and the Trumps agree to provide weekly lists of vacancies to Black community organizations.

1976 – Trump and his father partner with the Hyatt Corporation, purchasing the Commodore Hotel, an aging midtown Manhattan property. The building is revamped and opens four years later as the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The project kickstarts Trump’s career as a Manhattan developer.

1983-1990 – He builds/purchases multiple properties in New York City, including Trump Tower and the Plaza Hotel, and also opens casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, including the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Plaza. Trump buys the New Jersey Generals football team, part of the United States Football League, which folds after three seasons.

1985 – Purchases Mar-a-Lago, an oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida. It is renovated and opens as a private club in 1995.

1987 – Trump’s first book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” is published, and becomes a bestseller. The Donald J. Trump Foundation is established in order to donate a portion of profits from book sales to charities.

1990 – Nearly $1 billion in personal debt, Trump reaches an agreement with bankers allowing him to avoid declaring personal bankruptcy.

1991 – The Trump Taj Mahal files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

1992 – The Trump Plaza and the Trump Castle casinos file for bankruptcy.

1996 – Buys out and becomes executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants.

October 7, 1999 – Tells CNN’s Larry King that he is going to form a presidential exploratory committee and wants to challenge Pat Buchanan for the Reform Party nomination.

February 14, 2000 – Says that he is abandoning his bid for the presidency, blaming discord within the Reform Party.

January 2004 – “The Apprentice,” a reality show featuring aspiring entrepreneurs competing for Trump’s approval, premieres on NBC.

November 21, 2004 – Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

2005 – Establishes Trump University, which offers seminars in real estate investment.

February 13, 2009 – Announces his resignation from his position as chairman of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Days later, the company files for bankruptcy protection.

March 17, 2011 – During an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trump questions whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

June 16, 2015 – Announces that he is running for president during a speech at Trump Tower. He pledges to implement policies that will boost the economy and says he will get tough on immigration. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…They’re sending people who have lots of problems,” Trump says. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

June 28, 2015 – Says he’s giving up the TV show “The Apprentice” to run for president.

June 29, 2015 – NBCUniversal says it is cutting its business ties to Trump and won’t air the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants because of “derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants.”

July 8, 2015 – In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Trump says he “can’t guarantee” all of his employees have legal status in the United States. This is in response to questions about a Washington Post report about undocumented immigrants working at the Old Post Office construction site in Washington, DC, which Trump is converting into a hotel.

July 22, 2015 – Trump’s financial disclosure report is made public by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

August 6, 2015 – During the first 2016 Republican debate, Trump is questioned about a third party candidacy, his attitude towards women and his history of donating money to Democratic politicians. He tells moderator Megyn Kelly of Fox News he feels he is being mistreated. The following day, Trump tells CNN’s Don Lemon that Kelly was singling him out for attack, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

September 11, 2015 – Trump announces he has purchased NBC’s half of the Miss Universe Organization, which organizes the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.

December 7, 2015 – Trump’s campaign puts out a press release calling for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

May 26, 2016 – Secures enough delegates to clinch the Republican Party nomination.

July 16, 2016 – Introduces Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.

July 19, 2016 – Becomes the Republican Party nominee for president.

September 13, 2016 – During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says his office is investigating Trump’s charitable foundation “to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York.”

October 1, 2016 – The New York Times reports Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995 which could have allowed him to legally skip paying federal income taxes for years. The report is based on a financial document mailed to the newspaper by an anonymous source.

October 7, 2016 – Unaired footage from 2005 surfaces of Trump talking about trying to have sex with a married woman and being able to grope women. In footage obtained by The Washington Post, Trump is heard off-camera discussing women in vulgar terms during the taping of a segment for “Access Hollywood.” In a taped response, Trump declares, “I said it, I was wrong and I apologize.”

October 9, 2016 – During the second presidential debate, CNN’s Cooper asks Trump about his descriptions of groping and kissing women without their consent in the “Access Hollywood” footage. Trump denies that he has ever engaged in such behavior and declares the comments were “locker room talk.” After the debate, 11 women step forward to claim that they were sexually harassed or sexually assaulted by the real estate developer. Trump says the stories aren’t true.

November 8, 2016 – Elected president of the United States. Trump will be the first president who has never held elected office, a top government post or a military rank.

November 18, 2016 – Trump agrees to pay $25 million to settle three lawsuits against Trump University. About 6,000 former students are covered by the settlement.

December 24, 2016 – Trump says he will dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation “to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President.” A spokeswoman for the New York Attorney General’s Office says that the foundation cannot legally close until investigators conclude their probe of the charity.

January 10, 2017 – CNN reports that intelligence officials briefed Trump on a dossier that contains allegations about his campaign’s ties to Russia and unverified claims about his personal life. The author of the dossier is a former British spy who was hired by a research firm that had been funded by both political parties to conduct opposition research on Trump.

January 20, 2017 – Takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts during an inauguration ceremony at the Capitol.

January 23, 2017 – Trump signs an executive action withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration and awaiting congressional approval.

January 27, 2017 – Trump signs an executive order halting all refugee arrivals for 120 days and banning travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. Additionally, refugees from Syria are barred indefinitely from entering the United States. The order is challenged in court.

February 13, 2017 – Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigns amid accusations he lied about his communications with Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn later pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.

May 3, 2017 – FBI Director James Comey confirms that there is an ongoing investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during a hearing on Capitol Hill. Less than a week later, Trump fires Comey, citing a DOJ memo critical of the way he handled the investigation into Clinton’s emails.

May 2017 – Shortly after Trump fires Comey, the FBI opens an investigation into whether Trump “had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests,” citing former law enforcement officials and others the paper said were familiar with the probe.

May 17, 2017 – Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed as special counsel to lead the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including potential collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein makes the appointment because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from investigations into Trump’s campaign.

May 19, 2017 – Departs on his first foreign trip as president. The nine-day, five-country trip includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, a NATO summit in Brussels and a G7 summit in Sicily.

June 1, 2017 – Trump proclaims that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord but adds that he is open to renegotiating aspects of the environmental agreement, which was signed by 175 countries in 2016.

July 7, 2017 – Meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in person for the first time, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

August 8, 2017 – In response to nuclear threats from North Korea, Trump warns that Pyongyang will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Soon after Trump’s comments, North Korea issues a statement saying it is “examining the operational plan” to strike areas around the US territory of Guam.

August 15, 2017 – After a violent clash between neo-Nazi activists and counterprotesters leaves one dead in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump holds an impromptu press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower and declares that there were “fine people” on both sides.

August 25, 2017 – Trump’s first pardon is granted to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for disregarding a court order in a racial-profiling case. Trump did not consult with lawyers at the Justice Department before announcing his decision.

September 5, 2017 – The Trump administration announces that it is ending the DACA program, introduced by Obama to protect nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Trump calls on Congress to introduce legislation that will prevent DACA recipients from being deported. Multiple lawsuits are filed opposing the policy in federal courts and judges delay the end of the program, asking the government to submit filings justifying the cancellation of DACA.

September 19, 2017 – In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump refers to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and warns that the United States will “totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies.

September 24, 2017 – The Trump administration unveils a third version of the travel ban, placing restrictions on travel by certain foreigners from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. (Chad is later removed after meeting security requirements.) One day before the revised ban is set to take effect, it is blocked nationwide by a federal judge in Hawaii. A judge in Maryland issues a similar ruling.

December 4, 2017 – The Supreme Court rules that the revised travel ban can take effect pending appeals.

December 6, 2017 – Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announces plans to relocate the US Embassy there.

January 11, 2018 – During a White House meeting on immigration reform, Trump reportedly refers to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”

January 12, 2018 – The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump allegedly had an affair with a porn star named Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. The newspaper states that Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 payment for a nondisclosure agreement weeks before Election Day in 2016. Trump denies the affair occurred. In March, Clifford sues Trump seeking to be released from the NDA. In response, Trump and his legal team agree outside of court not to sue or otherwise enforce the NDA. The suit is dismissed. A California Superior Court judge orders Trump to pay $44,100 to Clifford, to reimburse her attorneys’ fees in the legal battle surrounding her nondisclosure agreement.

March 13, 2018 – Trump announces in a tweet that he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement.

March 20, 2018 – A New York Supreme Court judge rules that a defamation lawsuit against Trump can move forward, ruling against a July 2017 motion to dismiss filed by Trump’s lawyers. The lawsuit, filed by Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant, is related to sexual assault allegations. In November 2021, attorneys for Zervos announce she is dropping the lawsuit.

March 23, 2018 – The White House announces that it is adopting a policy, first proposed by Trump via tweet in July 2017, banning most transgender individuals from serving in the military.

April 9, 2018 – The FBI raids Cohen’s office, home and a hotel room where he’d been staying while his house was renovated. The raid is related to a federal investigation of possible fraud and campaign finance violations.

April 13, 2018 – Trump authorizes joint military strikes in Syria with the UK and France after reports the government used chemical weapons on civilians in Douma.

May 7, 2018 – The Trump administration announces a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossings. Sessions says that individuals who violate immigration law will be criminally prosecuted and warns that parents could be separated from children.

May 8, 2018 – Trump announces that the United States is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

May 31, 2018 – The Trump administration announces it is imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from allies Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

June 8-9, 2018 – Before leaving for the G7 summit in Quebec City, Trump tells reporters that Russia should be reinstated in the group. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 led to Russia’s suspension. After leaving the summit, Trump tweets that he will not endorse the traditional G7 communique issued at the end of the meeting. The President singles out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for making “false statements” at a news conference.

June 12, 2018 – Trump meets Kim in person for the first time during a summit in Singapore. They sign a four-point statement that broadly outlines the countries’ commitment to a peace process. The statement contains a pledge by North Korea to “work towards” complete denuclearization but the agreement does not detail how the international community will verify that Kim is ending his nuclear program.

June 14, 2018 – The New York attorney general sues the Trump Foundation, alleging that the nonprofit run by Trump and his three eldest children violated state and federal charity law.

June 26, 2018 – The Supreme Court upholds the Trump administration’s travel ban in a 5-4 ruling along party lines.

July 16, 2018 – During a joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump declines to endorse the US government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the election, saying he doesn’t “see any reason why” Russia would be responsible. The next day, Trump clarifies his remark, “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.” He says he accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the election but adds, “It could be other people also.”

August 21, 2018 – Cohen pleads guilty to eight federal charges, including two campaign finance violations. In court, he says that he orchestrated payments to silence women “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.” On the same day, Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort is convicted on eight counts of federal financial crimes. On December 12, Cohen is sentenced to three years in prison.

October 2, 2018 – The New York Times details numerous tax avoidance schemes allegedly carried out by Trump and his siblings. In a tweet, Trump dismisses the article as a “very old, boring and often told hit piece.”

November 20, 2018 – Releases a statement backing Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Virginia resident, killed in October at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. Khashoggi was a frequent critic of the Saudi regime. The Saudis initially denied any knowledge of his death, but then later said a group of rogue operators were responsible for his killing. US officials have speculated that such a mission, including the 15 men sent from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to murder him, could not have been carried out without the authorization of Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In the statement, Trump writes, “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event, maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”

December 18, 2018 – The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve according to a document filed in Manhattan Supreme Court. The agreement allows the New York attorney general’s office to review the recipients of the charity’s assets.

December 22, 2018 – The longest partial government shutdown in US history begins after Trump demands lawmakers allocate $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall before agreeing to sign a federal funding package.

January 16, 2019 – After nearly two years of Trump administration officials denying that anyone involved in his campaign colluded with the Russians to help his candidacy, Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani, says “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign. I said the President of the United States.”

January 25, 2019 – The government shutdown ends when Trump signs a short-term spending measure, providing three weeks of stopgap funding while lawmakers work on a border security compromise. The bill does not include any wall funding.

February 15, 2019 – Trump declares a national emergency to allocate funds to build a wall on the border with Mexico. During the announcement, the President says he expects the declaration to be challenged in court. The same day, Trump signs a border security measure negotiated by Congress, with $1.375 billion set aside for barriers, averting another government shutdown.

February 18, 2019 – Attorneys general from 16 states file a lawsuit in federal court challenging Trump’s emergency declaration.

March 22, 2019 – Mueller ends his investigation and delivers his report to Attorney General William Barr. A senior Justice Department official tells CNN that there will be no further indictments.

March 24, 2019 – Barr releases a letter summarizing the principal conclusions from Mueller’s investigation. According to Barr’s four-page letter, the evidence was not sufficient to establish that members Trump’s campaign tacitly engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the election.

April 18, 2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller report is released. The first part of the 448-page document details the evidence gathered by Mueller’s team on potential conspiracy crimes and explains their decisions not to charge individuals associated with the campaign. The second part of the report outlines ten episodes involving possible obstruction of justice by the President. According to the report, Mueller’s decision not to charge Trump was rooted in Justice Department guidelines prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president. Mueller writes that he would have cleared Trump if the evidence warranted exoneration.

May 1, 2019 – The New York Times publishes a report that details how Giuliani, in his role as Trump’s personal attorney, is investigating allegations related to former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Trump opponent in the 2020 presidential race. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings. In 2016, the elder Biden pressured Ukraine to oust a prosecutor who had investigated Burisma for corruption. Giuliani suggests that Biden’s move was motivated by a desire to protect his son from criminal charges. Giuliani’s claims are undermined after Bloomberg reports that the Burisma investigation was “dormant” when Biden pressed the prosecutor to resign.

June 12, 2019 – Trump says he may be willing to accept information about political rivals from a foreign government during an interview on ABC News, declaring that he’s willing to listen and wouldn’t necessarily call the FBI.

June 16, 2019 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveils a sign at the proposed site of a Golan Heights settlement to be named Trump Heights.

June 18, 2019 – Trump holds a rally in Orlando to publicize the formal launch of his reelection campaign.

June 28, 2019 – During a breakfast meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman reportedly discuss tensions with Iran, trade and human rights.

June 30, 2019 – Trump becomes the first sitting US president to enter North Korea. He takes 20 steps beyond the border and shakes hands with Kim.

July 14, 2019 – Via Twitter, Trump tells Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Illhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley to “go back” to their home countries. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley are natural-born US citizens; Omar was born in Somalia, immigrated to the United States and became a citizen.

July 16, 2019 – The House votes, 240-187, to condemn the racist language Trump used in his tweets about Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar and Pressley.

July 24, 2019 – Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

July 25, 2019 – Trump speaks on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump asks Zelensky for a “favor,” encouraging him to speak with Giuliani about investigating Biden. In the days before the call, Trump blocked nearly $400 million in military and security aid to Ukraine.

August 12, 2019 – A whistleblower files a complaint pertaining to Trump’s conduct on the Zelensky call.

September 11, 2019 – The Trump administration lifts its hold on military aid for Ukraine.

September 24, 2019 – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the beginning of an impeachment inquiry related to the whistleblower complaint.

September 25, 2019 – The White House releases notes from the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky. The readout contains multiple references to Giuliani and Barr. In response, the Justice Department issues a statement that says Barr didn’t know about Trump’s conversation until weeks after the call. Further, the attorney general didn’t talk to the President about having Ukraine investigate the Bidens, according to the Justice Department. On the same day as the notes are released, Trump and Zelensky meet in person for the first time on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. During a joint press conference after the meeting, both men deny that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden in exchange for aid.

September 26, 2019 – The House releases a declassified version of the whistleblower complaint. According to the complaint, officials at the White House tried to “lock down” records of Trump’s phone conversation with Zelensky. The complaint also alleges that Barr played a role in the campaign to convince Zelensky that Biden should be investigated. Trump describes the complaint as “fake news” and “a witch hunt” on Twitter.

September 27, 2019 – Pompeo is subpoenaed by House committees over his failure to provide documents related to Ukraine. Kurt Volker, US special envoy to Ukraine, resigns. He was named in the whistleblower complaint as one of the State Department officials who helped Giuliani connect with sources in Ukraine.

October 3, 2019 – Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump says both Ukraine and China should investigate alleged corruption involving Biden and his son. CNN reports that the President had brought up Biden and his family during a June phone call with Xi Jinping. In that call, Trump discussed the political prospects of Biden as well as Elizabeth Warren. He also told Xi that he would remain quiet on the matter of Hong Kong protests. Notes documenting the conversation were placed on a highly secured server where the transcript from the Ukraine call was also stored.

October 6, 2019 – After Trump speaks on the phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the White House announces that US troops will move out of northern Syria to make way for a planned Turkish military operation. The move marks a major shift in American foreign policy and effectively gives Turkey the green light to attack US-backed Kurdish forces, a partner in the fight against ISIS.

October 9, 2019 – Turkey launches a military offensive in northern Syria.

October 31, 2019 – Trump says via Twitter that he is changing his legal residency from New York to Florida, explaining that he feels he is treated badly by political leaders from the city and state.

November 7, 2019 – A judge orders Trump to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit against his charity filed by the New York state attorney general. According to the suit, Trump breached his fiduciary duty by allowing his presidential campaign to direct the distribution of donations. In a statement, Trump accuses the attorney general of mischaracterizing the settlement for political purposes.

November 13, 2019 – Public impeachment hearings begin and Trump meets Erdogan at the White House.

November 20, 2019 – During a public hearing, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland says he worked with Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine at the “express direction of the President of the United States” and he says “everyone was in the loop.” Sondland recounts several conversations between himself and Trump about Ukraine opening two investigations: one into Burisma and another into conspiracies about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 US election.

December 10, 2019 – House Democrats unveil two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress.

December 11, 2019 – Trump signs an executive order to include discrimination against Jewish people as a violation of law in certain cases, with an eye toward fighting antisemitism on college campuses.

December 13, 2019 – The House Judiciary Committee approves the two articles of impeachment in a party line vote.

December 18, 2019 – The House of Representatives votes to impeach Trump, charging a president with high crimes and misdemeanors for just the third time in American history.

January 3, 2020 – Speaking at Mar-a-Lago, Trump announces that a US airstrike in Iraq has killed Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force.

January 8, 2020 – Iran fires a number of missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops in retaliation for the American strike that killed Soleimani. No US or Iraqi lives are reported lost, but the Pentagon later releases a statement confirming that 109 US service members had been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries in the wake of the attack.

January 24, 2020 – Makes history as the first President to attend the annual March for Life rally in Washington, DC, since it began nearly a half-century ago. Trump reiterates his support for tighter abortion restrictions.

January 29, 2020 – Trump signs the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement into law, which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement.

January 31, 2020 – The Trump administration announces an expansion of the travel ban to include six new countries. Immigration restrictions will be imposed on: Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar (known as Burma), with exceptions for immigrants who have helped the United States.

February 5, 2020 – The Senate votes to acquit Trump on two articles of impeachment. Sen. Mitt Romney is the sole Republican to vote to convict on the charge of abuse of power, joining with all Senate Democrats in a 52-48 not guilty vote. On the obstruction of Congress charge, the vote falls along straight party lines, 53-47 for acquittal.

May 29, 2020 – Trump announces that the United States will terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization.

July 10, 2020 – Trump commutes the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone, who was convicted of crimes that included lying to Congress in part, prosecutors said, to protect the President. The announcement came just days before Stone was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia.

October 2, 2020 – Trump announces that he has tested positive for coronavirus. Later in the day, Trump is transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and returns to the White House on October 5.

November 7, 2020 – Days after the presidential election on November 3, CNN projects Trump loses his bid for reelection to Biden.

November 25, 2020 – Trump announces in a tweet that he has granted Michael Flynn a “full pardon,” wiping away the guilty plea of the intelligence official for lying to the FBI.

December 23, 2020 – Announces 26 new pardons, including for Stone, Manafort and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles.

January 6, 2021 – Following Trump’s rally and speech at the White House Ellipse, pro-Trump rioters storm the US Capitol as members of Congress meet to certify the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election. A total of five people die, including a Capitol Police officer the next day.

January 7-8, 2021 – Instagram and Facebook place a ban on Trump’s account from posting through the remainder of his presidency and perhaps “indefinitely.” Twitter permanently bans Trump from the platform, explaining that “after close review of recent Tweets…and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

January 13, 2021 – The House votes to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” He is the only president to be impeached twice.

January 20, 2021 – Trump issues a total of 143 pardons and commutations that include his onetime political strategist, Steve Bannon, a former top fundraiser and two well-known rappers but not himself or his family. He then receives a military-style send-off from Joint Base Andrews on Inauguration morning, before heading home to Florida.

February 13, 2021 – The US Senate acquits Trump in his second impeachment trial, voting that Trump is not guilty of inciting the deadly January 6 riots at the US Capitol. The vote is 43 not guilty to 57 guilty, short of the 67 guilty votes needed to convict.

May 5, 2021 – Facebook’s Oversight Board upholds Trump’s suspension from using its platform. The decision also applies to Facebook-owned Instagram.

June 4, 2021 – Facebook announces Trump will be suspended from its platform until at least January 7th, 2023 – two years from when he was initially suspended.

July 1, 2021 – New York prosecutors charge the Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corporation with 10 felony counts and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg with 15 felony counts in connection with an alleged tax scheme stretching back to 2005. Trump himself is not charged. On December 6, 2022, both companies are found guilty on all charges.

February 14, 2022 – Accounting firm Mazars announces it will no longer act as Trump’s accountant, citing a conflict of interest. In a letter to the Trump Organization chief legal officer, the firm informs the Trump Organization to no longer rely on financial statements ending June 2011 through June 2020.

May 3, 2022 – The Trump Organization and the Presidential Inaugural Committee agree to pay a total of $750,000 to settle with the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office over allegations they misspent money raised for former President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

June 9-July 21, 2022 – The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol holds eight hearings, where it hears from witnesses including top ex-Trump officials, election workers, those who took part in the attack and many others. Through live testimony, video depositions, and never-before-seen material, the committee attempts to paint the picture of the former president’s plan to stay in power and the role he played on January 6.

August 8, 2022 – The FBI executes a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been brought there.

August 12, 2022 – A federal judge unseals the search warrant and property receipt from the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. The unsealed documents indicate the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from its search, including some materials marked as “top secret/SCI” – one of the highest levels of classification, and identify three federal crimes that the Justice Department is looking at as part of its investigation: violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records.

September 21, 2022 – The New York state attorney general files a lawsuit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former President used to enrich himself. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals.

October 3, 2022 – Trump files a lawsuit against CNN for defamation, seeking $475 million in punitive damages.

November 15, 2022 – Announces that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

November 19, 2022 – Trump’s Twitter account, which was banned following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, is reinstated after users respond to an online poll posted by Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk.

December 19, 2022 – The Jan. 6 insurrection committee votes to refer Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges. Four days later the panel releases its final report recommending Trump be barred from holding office again.

February 9, 2023 – Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts are restored following a two-year ban in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, a Meta spokesperson confirms to CNN. On March 17, 2023, YouTube restores Trump’s channel.

March 30, 2023 – A grand jury in New York votes to indict Trump, the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.

April 4, 2023 – Surrenders and is placed under arrest before pleading not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court. Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs. Hours after his arraignment, Trump rails against the Manhattan district attorney and the indictment during a speech at his Florida resort at Mar-a-Lago.

May 9, 2023 – A Manhattan federal jury finds Trump sexually abused former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and awards her $5 million for battery and defamation.

May 15, 2023 – A report by special counsel John Durham is released. In it he concludes that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. The report does not recommend any new charges against individuals or “wholesale changes” about how the FBI handles politically charged investigations, despite strongly criticizing the agency’s behavior.

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April 12, 2021
CNN Exclusive: Biden says war with Russia must end before NATO can consider membership for Ukraine | CNN Politics

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President Joe Biden told CNN in an exclusive interview that Ukraine is not yet ready for NATO membership, saying that Russia’s war in Ukraine needs to end before the alliance can consider adding Kyiv to its ranks.

Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that while discussion of Ukraine’s imminent membership in NATO was premature, the US and its allies in NATO would continue to provide President Volodymyr Zelensky and his forces the security and weaponry they need to try to end the war with Russia.

Biden spoke to Zakaria ahead of his weeklong trip to Europe, which includes a NATO summit in Lithuania where Russia’s war in Ukraine and Zelensky’s push for NATO membership will be among the key issues looming over the gathering.

“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden said. “For example, if you did that, then, you know – and I mean what I say – we’re determined to commit every inch of territory that is NATO territory. It’s a commitment that we’ve all made no matter what. If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.”

Biden said that he’s spoken to Zelensky at length about the issue, saying that he’s told the Ukrainian president the US would keep providing security and weaponry for Ukraine like it does for Israel while the process plays out.

“I think we have to lay out a rational path for Ukraine to be able to qualify to be able to get into NATO,” Biden said, noting that he refused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands before the war for a commitment not to admit Ukraine because the alliance has “an open-door policy.”

“But I think it’s premature to say, to call for a vote, you know, in now, because there’s other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization and some of those issues,” Biden said.

On Friday, the White House announced that the US was sending Ukraine cluster munitions for the first time, a step taken to help bolster Ukraine’s ammunition as it mounts a counteroffensive against Russia. Biden told Zakaria that it was a “difficult decision” to give Ukraine the controversial ammunition, but that he was convinced it was necessary because Ukraine was running out of ammunition.

The NATO meeting also comes as Sweden is seeking to join the Western alliance, a move that has faced resistance from Turkey and Hungary. Biden told Zakaria he was optimistic that Sweden would eventually be admitted to NATO, noting the key holdout, Turkey, is seeking to modernize its F-16 fleet, along with Greece, which has voted to admit Sweden.

“Turkey is looking for modernization of F-16 aircraft. And (Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos) Mitsotakis in Greece is also looking for some help,” Biden said. “And so, what I’m trying to, quite frankly, put together is a little bit of a consortium here, where we’re strengthening NATO in terms of military capacity of both Greece as well as Turkey, and allow Sweden to come in. But it’s in play. It’s not done.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Biden and Zakaria also discussed other key foreign policy challenges, including China, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Biden said that he’s confident Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to replace the US as the country with the largest economy and military capacity in the world, but he said that he believes the US can have a working relationship with Beijing.

“I think there is a way to resolve, to establish a working relationship with China that benefits them and us,” Biden said. “And the last thing I’ll tell you, I also called him after he had that meeting with the Russians about this new relationship, etc. And I said, ‘This is not a threat. It’s an observation.’ I said, ‘Since Russia went into Ukraine, 600 American corporations have pulled out of Russia. And you’ve told me that your economy depends on investment from Europe and the United States. And be careful. Be careful.’”

Biden said Xi didn’t argue with him and noted that China has “not gone full bore on Russia.”

“He talks about nuclear war being a disaster, there is such a thing as security that’s needed,” Biden said of the Chinese leader. “So, I think there’s a way we can work through this.”

Asked whether he would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, Biden said that Israel’s President Isaac Herzog was coming soon to the White House for a visit.

In March, Biden criticized Netanyahu for his now-scrapped plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary, a rare public instance where the two allies were publicly at odds.

Biden told Zakaria that he continued to believe a two-state solution was the correct path forward in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and he criticized some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet for their views on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“It’s not all Israel now in the West Bank, all Israel’s problem, but they are a part of the problem, and particularly those individuals in the cabinet who say, ‘We can settle anywhere we want. They have no right to be here, etc.,’” Biden said. “And I think we were talking with them regularly, trying to tamp down what’s going on and hopefully, Bibi will continue to move toward moderation and change.”

Biden also defended his trip to Saudi Arabia last year, telling Zakaria a number of successes came from the visit, such as establishing Israeli overflights over Saudi Arabia. Asked whether the US would provide the Saudis with a defense treaty and civilian nuclear capacity, as Riyadh has requested, Biden said, “We’re a long way from there.”

“Whether or not we would provide a means by which they can have civilian nuclear power, and/or be a guarantor of their security – I think that’s a little way off,” Biden said.

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April 12, 2021