Blinken visits Saudi Arabia amid oil and China tensions with US.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Travels to Saudi Arabia to Steady Relationship

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarked on a mission to steady Washington’s relationship with Riyadh over deepening disagreements on issues ranging from China and regional security to oil prices. Blinken is expected to meet with top Saudi officials and possibly the kingdom’s de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS, during his time in Riyadh, the capital, and the coastal city of Jeddah, in what will be Washington’s second recent high-level visit.

The top US diplomat’s June 6-8 visit to the world’s largest oil exporter comes days after Riyadh pledged to further cut oil production, a move likely to add tension to a US-Saudi relationship already strained by the kingdom’s human rights record and disputes over America’s Iran policy.

The Aims of the Trip

The aims of the trip include regaining influence with Riyadh over oil prices, fending off Chinese and Russian influence in the region, and nurturing hopes for an eventual normalization of Saudi-Israeli ties.

Discouraging a closer Saudi-Chinese relationship is probably the most important element of Blinken’s visit, said Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at Washington-based think-tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

“[Blinken should explain] why Chinese interests do not align with Saudi Arabia, and why closer relations in a strategic way inhibit closer relations with Washington,” Goldberg said.

US-Saudi Ties

US-Saudi ties were off to a rocky start in 2019 when President Joe Biden during his campaign said he would treat Riyadh like “the pariah that they are” if he was elected, and soon after taking office in 2021, released a US intelligence assessment that Crown Prince Mohammed approved the operation to capture or kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

A visit by Biden in July 2022 to the kingdom did little to ease tensions, and increasingly, Riyadh has looked to reassert its regional clout, while growing less interested in being aligned with US priorities in the region.

The most recent example was when MbS gave a warm embrace to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad at an Arab League summit in May, which saw Arab states readmit Syria after a decade of suspension, a move Washington said it neither supported nor encouraged.

Human Rights Concerns

U.S. citizens and residents with family members detained in Saudi Arabia called on Blinken in a letter on Tuesday to press Saudi officials for an immediate release of their relatives. The list included prominent cleric Salman al-Odah, children of former spy chief Saad al-Jabri, human rights defender Mohammed al-Qahtani and aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan.

The kingdom had released detained US citizens from its prisons but some still remain under a travel ban.

US officials briefing reporters on the trip last week said there was an “ongoing conversation regarding the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms” with Saudi Arabia but they declined to say if Blinken would seek any guarantees from the Saudis on the issue.

“We have made clear that we will continue to raise human rights and that we will continue to push for accountability for any abuses that have occurred in the past,” a senior State Department official said.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Simon Lewis and Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sharon Singleton)