From Pariah To Partner: The Healing Power Of High Gasoline Prices

From Pariah To Partner: The Healing Power Of High Gasoline Prices

US President Joe Biden, speaks during an arrival ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel ... [+] Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday, July 13, 2022. President Biden will seek to salvage relations with Saudi Arabia during a Mideast trip that risks political embarrassment unless near-record US gasoline prices swiftly come back to Earth. Photographer: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg During the campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, Joe Biden said he would make the Saudis "pay the price" for their killing of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. He elaborated: "I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them. We were going to in fact make them pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are." President Biden has had to learn some very hard lessons when it comes to the global oil industry. One of those lessons is that major oil-exporting countries — like Russia and Saudi Arabia — hold tremendous power because of the world's continued dependence on oil. That dependence complicated the Biden Administration's efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine by ceasing imports of Russian oil and oil products. As I warned back in