When he was running for the presidency Joe Biden was very clear what he thought of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). There was, he said, “very little redeeming social value in the present government in Saudi Arabia”. Speaking in the wake of the murder and dismemberment of the Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, Biden committed to make the Saudis “pay the price and make them in fact the pariah they are.”