WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st March, 2020) A group of US senators warned Saudi Arabia with the United States will impose� "foreign policy pressure" and fundamentally change the nature of bilateral relations unless Riyadh stops driving oil prices down, Senator Ted Cruz said on Monday.
Cruz and eight US lawmakers conducted a conference call with Saudi Arabia Ambassador to the Unite States Reema bint Bandar Al Saud in an attempt to convince her country to curb oil output and allow the market to rebound from current levels, which is insurmountable for US producers.
"It was as candid a call and as direct a call I've ever had with a foreign leader. The nine of us, we quite frankly unloaded on her," Cruz said in an interview to CNBC. "There is a whole series of steps we can take to escalate foreign policy pressure, we outlined a number of them, if you [Saudi Arabia] continue engaging in warfare against the US trying to drive down the price of oil to exploit this coronavirus crisis to drive a bunch of American producers out of business."
Cruz said he was hopeful that US President Donald Trump "will echo the same message" and the Saudis "will hear that."
"If they don't change their course, their relationships with the United States will change very fundamentally," Cruz said.
The senator from Texas pointed out that the Saudi ambassador tried to shift responsibility for plummeting oil prices to Russia by failing to agree with OPEC countries on output restrictions.
"But Russia is not our friend... and we treat them accordingly. We are aware their intentions are maligned," Cruz said in response. "The Saudi kingdom is supposed to be our friends."
Earlier on Monday, Trump had a phone conversation with Russia's President Vladimir Putin to discuss the issue of oil market crises and the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
