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Let's Go Brandon! Saudi Economy Booms amid American Energy Crisis

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) published a report Thursday that showed the oil industry booming with ten-percent growth, thanks in no small part to President Joe Biden’s attack on the American energy industry, while unemployment fell to 10.1 percent, its lowest level since 2008.

The robust Saudi economy will complicate President Biden’s efforts to wheedle or cajole more oil out of the Saudis during his visit in July, a last-ditch bid to bring U.S. gas prices down before the midterm election. Biden has little leverage over the Saudis, and they will see no good reason to bring oil prices down by increasing output.

Outside the still-dominant oil industry, the Saudi economy grew by 3.7 percent, while Biden’s policies have pushed America to the edge of a recession, and possibly over the edge. 

Even as it approaches a 15-year low, Saudi unemployment is still high by U.S. standards due to a very low workforce participation rate, which slipped 1.4 percent to hit 50.1 percent in the first quarter of 2022. 

The topline unemployment rate conceals a huge disparity between men (unemployment rate 5.1 percent) and women (20.2 percent.) 

President Joe Biden listens as he meets virtually with infant formula manufacturers from the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, Wednesday, June 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Joe Biden in Washington, Wednesday, June 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The World Bank applauded Saudi progress on women in the workforce in March, crediting them with “unprecedented progress in joining the labor market” thanks to reforms implemented under Saudi Vision 2030, the wide-ranging reconstruction plan conceived and shepherded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto leader of the country.

“These reforms are already benefiting 6 million Saudi women over the age of 21 and will affect women for many generations to come,” the World Bank predicted.

The workforce participation rate for Saudi women in every age category has grown at a spectacular rate since 2019 and it was largely driven by private-sector employment, not the government hiring women to make itself look good to foreign observers. There was, however, one notable government thumb on the scales: special taxes levied against foreign workers beginning in 2017, to make the labor of Saudi nationals more cost-competitive.

The Saudis actually import a great deal of fuel oil during hot summer months and these days they are buying millions of barrels of cheap Russian fuel oil flowing through Egypt.

The Saudis worked for years to develop closer relations with Russia, eventually succeeding in bringing the Russians into the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which became known as OPEC+ once Moscow joined in. 

According to Reuters on Thursday, OPEC+ agreed to a modest increase of oil output under heavy U.S. pressure in early June – but only because the Russians told the Saudis it was acceptable.

Joe Biden Insists He Will Not Beg Saudi Arabia to Produce More Oil

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President Joe Biden refused Thursday to ask Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to bring down the cost of gasoline in the United States and around the world.

Biden was specifically asked during his press conference in Europe about what he would say to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about oil during their scheduled meeting in July.

“No, I’m not going to ask them,” he said, noting that he already “indicated” to all the Gulf heads of state his desire for them to produce more oil.

“I hope we see them, in their own interest, concluding that makes sense to do,” Biden said.

Biden argued that his trip to Saudi Arabia was about Middle East peace negotiations with Israel, not the production of oil.

“I’m sure — it’s in Saudi Arabia, but it’s not about Saudi Arabia,” he said. “It’s in Saudi Arabia.”

Biden said he was not even sure he would end up speaking to the Saudi leaders.

“I’m not even sure; I guess I will see the King and the Crown Prince, but that’s — that’s not the meeting I’m going to,” he said. “They’ll be part of a much larger meeting.”

Biden has frequently gone out of his way to criticize Saudi Arabia despite their influence on global oil markets.

During his presidential campaign, Biden vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” but ultimately agreed to a meeting with their leaders in July.

Biden blamed high gas prices around the world on Russia invading Ukraine — even though gas prices in the United States were already rising rapidly before the war began.

“The bottom line is: Ultimately, the reason why gas prices are up is because of Russia,” he said. “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

Biden and his administration continue to pursue anti-fossil fuel policies, putting the country more at the mercy of oil-rich foreign dictators.

When asked how long drivers would be paying for gas, Biden replied, “As long as it takes. So Russia cannot, in fact, defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine.”

Poland Completes Anti-Migrant Belarus Border Wall

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) – A year after migrants started crossing into the European Union from Belarus to Poland, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and top security officials visited the border area on Thursday to mark the completion of a new steel wall.

On Friday, Polish authorities will also lift a state of emergency along the border that has blocked journalists, rights workers and others from witnessing a human rights crisis. At the very least, 20 migrants have died in the area’s freezing forests and bogs.

The Polish government characterizes the wall as part of the fight against Russia; human rights defenders see it as a huge double standard, where white, Christian refugees from Ukraine are welcomed but Muslims from Syria and other countries are rejected and mistreated.

“The first sign of the war in Ukraine was (Belarus President) Alexander Lukashenko’s attack on the Polish border with Belarus,” Morawiecki told a news conference.

“It was thanks to (our) political foresight and the anticipation of what may happen that we may focus now on helping Ukraine, which is fighting to protect its sovereignty,” Morawiecki said.

As Poland opened its gates to millions of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion, work was well underway to build the 5.5-meter (18-foot) high wall along 186 kilometers (115 miles) of its northern frontier with Belarus. It still needs electronic surveillance systems to be installed.

It’s meant to keep out asylum seekers of a different type: those fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, who were encouraged to try their luck by Belarus´ authoritarian regime – a close ally of Russia – as part of a feud with the EU.

One of the asylum-seekers was 32-year-old Ali, who left Syria late last year after reading on social media that the easiest way into the EU was to fly to Belarus and walk into Poland.

Ali, from a village outside Hama in western Syria, flew to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, and set out to find an unguarded spot in the forest where he could sneak over into the EU.

“I was looking for a place where I can live in safety, away from the oppression and hopelessness back home,” he said in an interview this week with The Associated Press in Berlin.

Ali, who didn’t give his last name, fearing repercussions for his family, was not prepared for the violence and sub-zero temperatures that awaited him in the vast forests and swamps.

“There were nights when I went to sleep on the bare ground in the woods thinking I would not wake up again,” Ali said.

Human rights activists see a double standard in the different treatment of the neighboring Ukrainian refugees – fellow Slavs who are mostly Christian, female and white – and those from the distant Middle East and Africa, many of whom are Muslims and male.

“If you give a lift to a refugee at the Ukrainian border you are a hero. If you do it at the Belarus border you are a smuggler and could end up in jail for eight years,” said Natalia Gebert, founder and CEO of Dom Otwarty, or Open House, a Polish NGO that helps refugees.

Belarus had never before been a key migration route into the EU – until its President Alexander Lukashenko began encouraging would-be asylum-seekers in the Middle East to travel to Minsk. Soon, people from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and African countries flocked to the EU’s eastern edge, entering Poland and neighboring Lithuania and Latvia.

EU leaders accused Lukashenko of waging “hybrid warfare” in revenge for the bloc’s sanctions over the regime’s treatment of dissidents. Poland´s government says Russia is complicit, given Lukashenko´s alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though migration slowed in the winter, people continued to try to enter the EU through Poland, a route seen as less dangerous than crossing the Mediterranean Sea, where many have drowned in past years, Gebert said.

Ali, whose small makeup business in Syria was destroyed when Sunni extremists learned he belonged to the Alawite religious minority, says he got pushed back six times by Polish border guards.

But Belarusian guards beat him, stole his money and forced him to take off all his clothes in the middle of the winter. He wanted to give up and return to Minsk, but the guards wouldn’t let him. They made him and others lie on the cold ground, screamed at them, approached closely with a snarling dog and kicked Ali repeatedly in the chest.

Polish border patrol officers broke his phone´s SIM card, he said. He went without water and food for days, lost in the swamps.

A Human Rights Watch report this month said Poland “unlawfully, and sometimes violently, summarily pushes migrants and asylum-seekers back to Belarus, where they face serious abuses, including beatings and rape by border guards and other security forces.”

Amnesty International has also detailed serious human rights abuses.

While some Poles support the government´s tough stance, many border region residents have throughout the winter and spring sought to help migrants trapped in the forest, several requiring medical help.

A play that premiered in Warsaw this week, “Responsibility,” asks how Poland can accept millions of Ukrainians while withholding help to thousands of others. One character asks: “Why does the Polish state demand that a child from Aleppo sits in a bog in sub-zero temperatures and withhold the aid it gives the child from Mariupol?”

Ali spent 16 days in the forests, before he and others used pliers to open a hole in a border fence. Some villagers gave him food and water, but soon he was apprehended by police and taken to a detention center.

Over the next three months, he was moved through several closed camps.

Guards carried batons and stun guns, he said, and every time before they moved him to a different camp they made him and other detainees strip naked in public. Nobody addressed him by his name, but by an identification number.

In March, he was handed his papers and taken to the Debak center for foreigners in Otrebusy southwest of Warsaw, where he was told: “Go away, go to Germany.”

Ali arrived in Berlin in April and applied for asylum. Rights activists and psychologists have documented his account and also those of other asylum-seekers who say they suffered abuse by both Belarusian and Polish border guards.

“I feel better here. People call me by my name again,” Ali said. “But I’m worried all the time that the Germans will send me back to Poland.”

Zelensky Berates NATO: Demands Yet More Arms, Money, and Support as He Defends 'Entire Civilization'

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday deplored what he saw as NATO’s failure to embrace his country and asked the alliance for yet more support.

He said weapons, money, and political backing are needed right now as he claimed to stand alone in defense of western civilization in the face of Russian predation.

Zelensky made his claim as he addressed the first plenary session of the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, by video link, AP reports, as he laid out his shopping list of requirements from supporters.

He warned the world leaders gathered they either had to provide Ukraine with the help it needed to defeat Russia or “face a delayed war between Russia and yourself.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky appears on a giant screen as he delivers a statement at the start of the first plenary session of the NATO summit at the Ifema congress centre in Madrid, on June 29, 2022. (GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)

The president also asked directly for more modern artillery systems while he bemoaned that NATO has not more fully embraced Ukraine.

“Hasn’t our contribution to defending Europe and the entire civilization been insufficient? What else is necessary?” Zelensky asked.

The question is “who is next?” he posited before adding:

This is not a war being waged by Russia against only Ukraine. This is a war for the right to dictate conditions in Europe – for what the future world order will be like.

The 30 NATO leaders meeting in Madrid heard directly from Zelenskyy as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged the alliance is “in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced since the Second World War.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country provides the bulk of NATO’s military power, said the summit would send “an unmistakable message … that NATO is strong and united.”

“We’re stepping up. We’re proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been,” said Biden, who has already authorized the transfer of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Ukraine.

Biden announced a hefty boost in America’s military presence in Europe, including a permanent U.S. base in Poland, two more Navy destroyers based in Rota, Spain, and two more F35 squadrons to the U.K.

As always, funding remains an issue.

Just nine of NATO’s 30 members currently meet the organization’s target of spending two percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: or e-mail to: [email protected]