Damascus-Sana
The threat to cut military support turned years ago into a trump card that the United States used with the Saudi regime to achieve its goals and re-used recently, after US President Donald Trump issued a clear warning to Saudi Arabia to move towards reducing oil production and reaching an agreement in this regard.
The scenes of the agreement that was described as historic about reducing oil production and the pressures that Trump exerted on the Saudi regime and used the threatening paper to raise the cover of US military support today, after informed sources revealed to Reuters that the US President threatened the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call on the second From this April and placing it in front of two options, either to reduce oil production or to lose American military support, it was not the last that was subject to the order and agreed to reduce production.
The sources made it clear that Trump made this threat through a letter to the Crown Prince of the Saudi regime ten days before the announcement of oil production cuts, and according to an American source who was informed by senior administration officials about the dialogue that took place, the threat surprised bin Salman and surprised him to the point that he ordered his assistants to leave the room so that he could From continuing the dialogue with Trump secretly.
The sources revealed that Trump instructed bin Salman that if the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries does not start reducing oil production, he would not be able to prevent Senators from enacting legislation to withdraw American forces from Saudi Arabia and this threat was central to the American pressure campaign that led to A historic global agreement to cut oil supplies at a time when demand collapsed by the Corona pandemic.
Nothing has been published about this threat to end the strategic alliance that started 75 years ago, and this move, according to observers, highlighted Trump's desire to protect the American oil industry from a historical price collapse at a time when governments have stopped economic activity around the world to fight the Corona virus.
A week before Trump's call with bin Salman, Republican Senators Kevin Kremer and Dan Sullivan proposed legislation to withdraw all American forces, Patriot missiles, and anti-missile defense systems from Saudi Arabia unless Saudi Arabia cuts oil production, and this proposal, according to media outlets, received increased support amid anger in Congress over a price war The oil.
The largest oil producing countries in the world outside the United States agreed on April 12, 10 days after Trump's threat to the Saudi regime, the largest reduction in production ever, but despite the agreement to reduce one tenth of global production, oil prices continued to decline to historical levels low and crude fell The American futures deal was below zero last week when sellers were forced to pay money to buyers to avoid receiving oil that they had no capacity to store.
The Brent mix also declined in futures trading, approaching $ 15 a barrel, a level that has not been witnessed by the markets since the collapse of the oil price in 1999 after its price at the beginning of the year was $ 70.
Despite this historic collapse in the American oil markets, the scenes of the agreement on reducing oil production reveal the nature of the real relationship between the Saudi regime and Washington, in which the United States imposes its conditions and dictates and gains enormous profits in return for providing exhibition military protection. As for the concessions in this relationship, they are always within the jurisdiction of The Saudi side.
Basem Kanoon
