"I think the president's been very clear that this is a relationship that we need to continue to re-evaluate, that we need to be willing to revisit, and certainly in light of the OPEC decision, I think that's where he is. And he's willing to work with Congress to think through what that relationship ought to look like going forward," Kirby said when asked for his reaction to Democrats' calls to freeze weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.
The top ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Menendez, and other leading Democrats have called for halting weapons sales to Saudi Arabia after Riyadh's decision to back OPEC+ cuts to oil production.
On Wednesday, OPEC+ announced that the alliance agreed to cut oil production by two million barrels per day from November and will take production levels agreed for August as a reference point. The move was made in response to uncertainty in global oil market outlooks, in part caused by Western sanctions on Russian energy deliveries and the G7 plans to introduce a price cap on Russian crude. The decision received backlash from the US, which demanded an increase in production to combat rising domestic prices.