The United States is pumping $500 million into Bahrain’s oil and gas fields, in what analysts call an “unusual” but clearly “geopolitical” investment that pits the Biden administration’s climate goals against its need to shore up a key ally in a region where war is increasingly straining Washington’s relations.
Along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain was one of the first two signatories to the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that in 2020 established formal diplomatic relations and trade with Israel. While Abu Dhabi has puton Washington over its support for Israel’s brutal war against Hamas in Gaza, Bahrain has taken what Brew describes as aBahrain is the only Arab state that joined the U.S. and British forces in combating the Yemen-based Houthi rebels attacking cargo ships bound for the Suez Canal.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Europeans scrambled to find alternatives to the Kremlin’s gas pipelines, U.S. fracking fields in states like Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota helped supply American allies with barges full of liquefied natural gas.The power of international oil exporter cartels that previously wielded supply cuts as an economic cudgel against Washington ― where administrations from both parties are sensitive to voters’ concerns over the price at the pump ― is waning.
Financing the project in Bahrain “runs counter” to the Biden administration’s policy and the president’s specific directives, they wrote. Sen. Jeff Merkley , another progressive, referred to the Ex-Im Bank as a “rogue agency” in When asked how the agency determined its financing would not “meaningfully” increase emissions, the spokesperson said the bank’s staff “performs a full due diligence review of transactions according to the agency’s statutory and policy requirements.”If the investment leads to a surge in emissions, an unrelated funding the Biden administration just announced may offer something of a grim offset. The U.S.