Saudi Arabia and its partners in the region could face a strained relationship with the United States if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency, experts say.
As a presidential candidate in 2020, Harris was highly critical of the kingdom after the murder of journalist Jamaal Khashoggi and backed a 2019 Senate bill calling for a public report on the matter.
And in response to a 2019 questionnaire from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Harris called the Saudis “strong partners” but said the United States needed to “fundamentally reassess our relationship” and “we[e] our influence to defend American values and interests.”
He also expressed his strong opposition to arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Biden approved a massive, multi-billion dollar arms deal with the Saudis in 2022, then halted offensive weapons sales to the nation until Earlier this month.
“We need to end US support for the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen,” Harris said in response to CFR.
Former Obama official predicts Harris will seek new nuclear deal with Iran
“The last thing we should be doing is selling them billions of dollars worth of weapons,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. in June 2019.
During his election campaign, Joe Biden promised to reassess US-Saudi ties over the Khashoggi killing, but upon assuming office he reached a truce with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a way to counter the growing threat from Iran.
His administration has long been pushing for several agreements to strengthen the US-Saudi relationship: defense guarantees, civil nuclear cooperation, and a landmark bilateral deal to normalize relations between the Kingdom and Israel.
“The Biden administration has been quite aware of the relationship with Saudi Arabia in terms of supplying them with the weapons necessary to defend the region against Iranian aggression,” Gerard Fillitti, senior counsel at the international Jewish human rights group Lawfare Project, told Fox News Digital.
“Joe Biden understood very well the complexities of Saudi involvement in Yemen,” he added.
“It is less clear that Kamala Harris understands that relationship and the need to strengthen Saudi Arabia as a buffer against Iranian intervention and military expeditions in the region using its proxies.”
Before the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, the Biden administration had made the deal one of its top priorities in the Middle East. Negotiations appeared to be nearing completion with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan visiting Riyadh several times. But the chances of the deal materializing before the election have since faded: sticking points remain over the war in Gaza.
A Harris-Walz administration could even “turn a blind eye” to Iran’s abuses in favor of diplomatic talks aimed at denuclearization, according to Middle East experts.
“The biggest threat to the Saudis is Iran,” Filitti told Fox News Digital. “They will be more open to negotiating with Iran. And remember, every time they've negotiated with Iran, things haven't ended well.”
“America's partners and allies in the region are concerned that a Harris administration would be much more lenient on Iran's regional activity compared to a Trump administration,” Firas Maksad, senior director at the Middle East Institute, told Fox News Digital.
Harris, in her 2019 response to the CFR, He said he was in favor of rejoining the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear programs.
“President Trump's unilateral withdrawal from a deal that verifiably prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – against the warnings of our closest allies and without any plan for what comes next – was beyond reckless,” he said.
Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, arguing that it was too weak to curb the Iranian regime's nuclear aspirations, calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever been involved in.”
Former President Barack Obama and his allies had embraced the deal, seeing it as a necessary compromise to bring Tehran to the negotiating table.
Maksad predicted that Harris would try to rewrite the Iran nuclear deal.
“The Iranians have said that this deal is dead. It will have to be renegotiated from scratch for a variety of technical reasons… but I expect the Harris administration to invest much more time and effort in diplomacy with Iran and be willing to look the other way as Iran continues its nefarious activities throughout the region in favor of prioritizing a nuclear deal.”
After Iran's supreme leader signaled his willingness to return to nuclear negotiations with Iran this week, the Biden administration poured cold water on that idea.
“We're very far from anything like that at this point,” a State Department spokesman said.
