As gas prices soar, Biden leans toward visiting Saudi Arabia

President Joe Biden is leaning towards making a visit to Saudi Arabia, a trip that would likely bring him face-to-face with the Saudi crown prince he once shunned as a killer.

The White House is weighing a visit to Saudi Arabia that would also include a meeting of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) as well as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, according to a person familiar with White House planning. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet-to-be finalized plans.

It comes at a moment when overriding U.S. strategic interests in oil and security have pushed the administration to rethink the arms-length stance that Biden pledged to take with the Saudis as a candidate for the White House.

Any meeting between Biden and de facto Saudi ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a Biden visit to the Middle East could offer hope of some relief for U.S. gasoline consumers, who are wincing as a squeaky-tight global oil supply drives up prices. Biden would be expected to meet with Prince Mohammed, who is often referred to by his initials, MBS , if the Saudi visit happens, according to the person familiar with the deliberations.

Such a meeting could also ease one of the most fraught and uncertain periods in a partnership between Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and the United States, the world's top economic and military power, that has stood for more than three-quarters of a century.

But it also risks a public humbling for the U.S. leader, who in 2019 pledged to make a "pariah" of the Saudi royal family over the 2018 killing and dismemberment of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a newspaper critic of many of the brutal ways...