Perhaps it is because President Joe Biden tends to wander in confusion as he tries to exit the stage following televised speeches. Maybe the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan left a lasting mark. In any case, Americans aren’t fooled by the lazy coverage of Biden’s favorite ice cream flavor. In a late December release from Pew Research’s annual global survey, Americans report feeling that U.S. influence is declining worldwide.
By more than a two-to-one margin, Americans say their country’s influence in the world has been getting weaker rather than stronger in recent years (47% vs. 19%), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted this past spring. Roughly a third of U.S. adults (32%) say their nation’s influence on the global stage has stayed about the same.
Pew notes that this sentiment is more common globally among people who do not support the governing party. Among Biden supporters, almost 40% see the U.S. getting weaker, while 58% who oppose him feel the same way.
However, among the countries surveyed, Biden’s supporters report feeling their nation’s influence is declining at a higher rate than the supporters of other global leaders. For example, despite Germany’s blatant reliance on Russia’s Vladimir Putin for energy, only 17% of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s supporters think their nation is getting weaker globally.
And as it turns out, Americans’ gut instinct about how other nations view us may be accurate. For example, a report in early December indicated Saudi Arabia wants to normalize ties with Israel. The two countries already allowed flights over each other’s air space, and meetings between leaders of the nations have been reported as far back as late November 2020.
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Relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel would never have been normalized without agreement from the Saudis. Business exchange and travel between the UAE and Israel continue to grow at a furious pace. It makes sense that the Saudis would want in on the action.
However, rather than do it because it is in their own interest, it appears Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) intends to leverage the situation to make demands of the Biden administration. Contrary to the administration’s assumption that a two-state solution or resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is required to move forward, MBS’s demands are Saudi-centric.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman listed three main demands that must be met for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and normalize ties with Israel, according to i24NEWS.
According to the report, these demands did not include anything about the Palestinian conflict or requests for Israel. Rather, they hinged entirely on the US, specifically affirming a US-Saudi alliance, proper weapons supplies to the kingdom as if it were a NATO country, and allowing Riyadh to have a restricted civil nuclear program.
These demands go directly to Saudi Arabia’s self-defense and directly result from the Biden administration’s insistence on the now-defunct resuscitation of the Iran Nuclear Deal. These demands follow the Saudis’ decision to cut oil production following U.S. requests for OPEC to increase it. Many observed the reductions were a response to the Biden administration’s hostility to the kingdom’s leaders.
Meanwhile, when China’s President Xi Jinping visited the kingdom in December, agreements worth about $30 billion were signed. According to Reuters:
Xi and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 37-year-old de facto ruler of the world’s biggest oil exporter, met at Yamamah Palace in Riyadh, flanked by high-ranking officials wearing face masks, footage aired on state television showed.
They oversaw the signing of energy agreements on hydrogen as well as a plan to “harmonise” Saudi Arabia’s ambitious economic reform agenda, Vision 2030, with China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, the official Saudi Press Agency said.
These developments are not widely reported but should concern everyone. The U.S. dollar is the primary global reserve currency. This means large quantities of U.S. currency are maintained by major financial institutions globally to prepare for investments, transactions, and international debt obligations or to influence their domestic exchange rate. Many commodities, like oil, are priced in U.S. dollars, causing other countries to hold this currency to pay for these goods.
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Trading oil and gas futures using the U.S. dollar solidified the position of the United States as the dominant reserve currency. This status results from agreements with Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing Middle Eastern countries. Biden’s Middle East policy puts this status at risk, according to an analysis from May 2022:
On the political front, the Saudi royalty has been particularly dissatisfied with Biden’s policy in the Middle East. Biden’s decision to unilaterally withdraw support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war distanced the kingdom from the US administration. A subsequent spree of Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities has further incensed the royalty. To add oil to the fire, Biden’s desperation to salvage the outdated Nuclear Deal with Iran has virtually alienated the kingdom to the point of indifference.
The analysis adds that China bought 25% of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports in 2020. “All the factors unambiguously point in a single direction — Saudi Arabia is leaning away from the U.S. to China. Naturally, the de-dollarisation of trade and investments would facilitate bilateral relations with China,” the author declared.
It seems the deals inked during the early December visit reinforce the observation that Saudi Arabia is turning to the East. Agreements to trade oil in the Chinese yuan could follow, decreasing U.S. dominance as the reserve currency.
This speaks to another gut instinct Americans expressed in the Pew poll. Sixty-six percent said China’s influence is growing, while only 19% said the power of the U.S. was expanding. Globally, the view of the two nations is similar. A median of 66% across 19 countries said China’s influence on the world stage is getting stronger, while just 32% say the same about the U.S.
It is not just Americans who see our influence waning. If that trend continues, it is terrible news for the safety, security, and prosperity of Americans and the rest of the world.
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