On this Middle East tour, the president must walk a foreign policy tightrope.
Activists stand along "Khashoggi Way", holding signs as a reminder of Jamal Khashoggi's murder
"If you have to put oil over principles and expediency over values," said Khashoggi's fiancé Hatice Cengiz in remarks read at the event, "can you at least ask where is Jamal's body? Doesn't he deserve a proper burial?"America's decades-long dealings with Saudi Arabia have traditionally involved a trade-off between US values and strategic interests.
Rising fuel prices were the driving force. The US appealed to the Saudis to pump more oil to help bring prices down. Riyadh initially rebuffed those requests. But just days before the president's trip was announced, Opec Plus, the oil producer's group of which Saudi Arabia is the de facto leader, approved a modest increase in production.
Mr Biden has played down the significance of any encounter with MBS, emphasising that he's going to attend an Arab regional conference in Jeddah at which the crown prince will be present.And he's defended his decision to go by saying he's acting partly at Israel's request, and started his trip by stressing the importance of Israel becoming "totally integrated" in the region.
"The entire arrangement is based, certainly, from the Israeli point of view, but also from the Gulf Arab point of view, on hostility toward Iran," he said. They are urging him to press for the release of de facto political prisoners and the lifting of travel bans and other restrictions on activists. They also want him to publicly repeat the demand that Khashoggi's killers be held to account.
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