This is an example of what happens when President Joe Biden (D) presses his assault on our nation’s energy production industry, presses his enthusiastic destruction of our energy independence, and does his kowtowing to Russia (and to OPEC) regarding that nation’s and that cartel’s oil and natural gas production and sale.

He’s reduced the United States of America to begging other nations for energy, and those nations along with Russia are now showing their contempt for Biden’s obsequiousness.

The headline summarizes the matter.

As Oil Nears $100, Saudis Snub US, Stick to Russian Pact Amid Ukraine Crisis

And this:

Rising oil prices and fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine have created a dilemma for Saudi Arabia: help the West by pumping more crude to tame the market, or stand by a five-year-old oil alliance that is helping Moscow at the expense of Washington.
For now, the world’s largest crude exporter is sticking with Russia.

And this:

President Biden has repeatedly called on Persian Gulf producers to pump more oil to reduce gasoline prices that, for Americans, are about twice as high as they were earlier in the pandemic. Those calls have grown more urgent as oil prices have risen toward $100 a barrel….
Instead, the Saudis have said they won’t pump more than they agreed to last year as part of a deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia[.]

It doesn’t matter a whit to Biden that this problem wouldn’t exist if he got his Biden-Harris administration out of the way of our domestic oil and natural gas production so we could go back to being independent of our enemies and acquaintances for our energy, our economic life.

It doesn’t matter a whit to Biden that European nations’ dependence on Russia for their energy wouldn’t exist if he got his Biden-Harris administration out of the way of our domestic oil and natural gas production so we could go back to supplying Europe with oil and natural gas.

Russia is continuing to withhold a free flow of natural gas to the EU, holding the flow down in order to elevate prices inflicted on the EU’s citizenry and to restrain Europe’s industrial capacity.

Gas prices have soared in Europe in recent months due to low inventories and a recovery in demand as the economy rebounds from the pandemic. The price surge has taken a toll on energy-intensive industrial activity while consumers face a steep rise in energy bills as the winter heating season begins.

Those prices are five times the level of just a year ago—before Biden surrendered to Putin on the Russia-sponsored hacker shutdown of Colonial Pipeline by unblocking the finishing of Russia’s Nordstream 2, which unblock also was in furtherance of Merkel’s demand for Russian natural gas via that cross-Baltic Sea pipeline.

Officials and analysts say that Moscow is using Europe’s energy crunch to gain geopolitical leverage.

Well, of course Putin is. He’s not an idiot.

And

In another sign that Russia isn’t about to significantly boost supplies to Europe, Ukraine’s gas transmission system said Sunday that it hasn’t received any additional requests from Gazprom and the gas transit remained below capacity.

This is the outcome of outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s and newly arrived American President Joe Biden’s (D) enthusiastically pursued energy policies coupled with Biden’s overt timidity in front of Putin. First, demonstrate Europe’s weakness. Only after that, exploit that weakness.

It stretches credulity beyond breaking to believe two such heavily intelligent people didn’t anticipate this.