President Joe Biden has defended his trip next week to Saudi Arabia as an opportunity to “redirect — but not sever — relations with a country that has been a strategic partner for 80 years,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post.
Biden is scheduled to travel to the Middle East July 13-16 to promote peace in the region and make a desperate effort to persuade Saudi Arabia to help ease record gas prices that have soared amid Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Biden wrote that Saudi Arabia “is now working with my experts to help stabilize oil markets with other OPEC producers.”
“I know there are many people who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia,” he continued. “My views on human rights are clear and long-standing, and fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad, as they will be on this trip, just as they will be in Israel and the West Bank.”
When he travels to Israel, Biden will receive the country’s highest civilian award, Israel’s Presidential Medal of Honor. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the award was “in gratitude for being a true friend of Israel” and for “Biden’s decades of support for Israel’s security, deepening our alliance and fighting anti-Semitism.”
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