President Joe Biden is unlikely to confront Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman face to face while they are in Indonesia next week for this year’s G-20 summit, despite preelection tough talk regarding the kingdom’s role in cutting global oil production.
But White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One that the Asian leg of Biden’s foreign trip could be updated amid tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia after OPEC+, led by the latter, announced its decision before the midterm elections that it would decrease production by 2 million barrels a day starting this month.
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“We don’t have any plans to have a sit-down meeting with MBS,” Sullivan said, using the crown prince’s initials, en route to Cambodia. “I said at the podium that we were likely to end up with other bilateral engagements as we go forward … so my guess is as particularly the two days in Bali unfold, the odds of additional meetings … will rise.”
Sullivan was similarly pressed on Biden’s other highly anticipated G-20 sideline tete-a-tete with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden will seek Xi’s cooperation in countering North Korea‘s “worst tendencies” as leader Kim Jong Un conducts an increase in missile tests, according to Sullivan.
“If North Korea keeps going down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region,” he said.
The national security adviser also downplayed speculation the U.S. had been pushing for Biden and Xi to speak more than did China, as well as any connection between its timing and this week’s election results.
“We had already basically in our heads, a month ago or longer, this was going to happen. It was just a matter of working that out,” he said.
Biden arrived in Phnom Penh on Saturday morning local time for this year’s annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. He is scheduled to meet with current ASEAN Chairman and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen before delivering remarks, take photos with counterparts from the economic and political group’s 10 member countries, and attend the Hun-hosted East Asia Summit Gala Dinner.
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During the ASEAN summit, Biden will advocate “costs” on Myanmar‘s ruling junta after Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s coup last year toppled Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, Sullivan said. Min has aligned himself with Russia as Myanmar grapples with deepening diplomatic isolation. Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s Ukraine war is expected to be another topic of discussion.
