Saudi Arabia grapples with geopolitical change
MbS cannot hope to bat the devils on his tail as they are many. The US does not really need Saudi Arabia anymore. But China needs it more. That said, China is a friend f Iran which sits badly with SA. Then, there is the little issue with the money. SA has gotten used to drown in cash a long time ago. This means that anything they perceived as to be a problem was showered in cash until it went away. Much less disposable cash makes this not harder but almost impossible. How does someone who never had to work for a living go on? And finally, the fable of cheap Saudi oil seems to be just that. Future oil from SA won’t be the “stick a finger in the sand” kind of thing anymore. EOR costs money, sour oil costs money. Money they don’t have. And that’s just a sliver of the whole thing.
