Cheaper oil or no more Coca-Cola!
Oil has always been an effective weapon used by the exporting countries of this important substance. What is happening now in the diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and America is due to Riyadh's rejection of Washington's request to increase oil production. The use of oil as a weapon by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not new. When the conflict between Arab nations and Israel erupted in October 1973, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's stance on the use of oil in conflict changed in a way that was more effective in the oil-consuming nations. As a result of King Faisal's oil policy, the Kingdom started to cut oil production by 10%. Furthermore, the Saudi Oil Minister informed the United States of America that unless Washington reverses its backing for Israel, Saudi Arabia will not expand its existing oil production. The situation persisted up to the infamous decision to shut off all oil supplies to the United States on October 19th, 1974.
Furthermore, the "Wall Street Journal" emphasized that Saudi Arabia had reaffirmed its commitment to the "OPEC +" deal and promised not to pump any more oil than had been agreed upon within the scope of "OPEC +". And since nearly 10% of the world's oil is produced by Russia, any change in the country's ability to deliver energy resources will have an effect on energy prices worldwide.
In light of these events, the US President sent an American delegation to Saudi Arabia to pressure it to produce more oil in order to lower the price, but these attempts failed. Will America be reckless and punish Saudi Arabia through food?
OPEC law allows America to sue Saudi Arabia, but this is only a threatening means and will not affect it, so decision makers in America may be looking for a more effective punishment. One of the options discussed to punish Saudi Arabia is to prevent food exports in which the United States of America plays an important role in the global market. Can Biden starve Saudi Arabia? On the other hand, how can OPEC oil affect many sectors in the United States of America in general?
Robert Barleg, a Harvard University professor, defined resource power in a paper titled: Food, Oil, and Power, as the ability of a country to influence the behavior of another country by manipulating the supply of a natural resource. This is under three important conditions, which are that the state leadership has complete control over the resources, the impact of the target state, and finally, that the target state is not able to cover its needs from the global market. When we apply the three conditions to the two weapons, oil and food, we will see that the conditions are fulfilled in the oil weapon only, the oil sector in the Arab countries is a governmental sector, and therefore the countries have the full ability to control their production in it. After the OPEC + decision and Saudi Arabia's refusal to increase production, gasoline prices in the United States of America increased. On the other hand, grain production in America is controlled by the private sector, and the government has no authority to impose its opinion on the private sector and force it not to sell to a country, and moreover, unlike oil, the agricultural crop cannot remain in the earth because it will spoil, as for the cost of storing it is high and expensive.
Also, Saudi Arabia can obtain its food needs from the global market, and the Saudi wheat crop covers a large proportion of the needs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.