It Will Be Hard To Blame This On Putin

 But it won't prevent people from trying:

The Biden administration launched a full-scale pressure campaign in a last-ditch effort to dissuade Middle Eastern allies from dramatically cutting oil production, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

But that effort appears to have failed, following Wednesday’s crucial meeting of OPEC+, the international cartel of oil producers that, as expected, announced a significant cut to output in an effort to raise oil prices. That in turn will likely cause US gasoline prices to rise at a precarious time for the Biden administration, just five weeks before the midterm elections.

On Wednesday morning, OPEC+ oil ministers meeting in Vienna agreed to an even larger production cut than the White House had feared — 2 million barrels per day, beginning in November, according to a readout of the meeting released on Wednesday. The ministers said the cuts were necessary “in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks.”

President Joe Biden told CNN’s Arlette Saenz on Wednesday that he was “concerned” about the cuts, which he viewed as “unnecessary.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters when asked about the move that “when it comes to OPEC, we’ve made clear our views to the OPEC members.”

For the past several days, Biden’s senior-most energy, economic and foreign policy officials were enlisted to lobby their foreign counterparts in Middle Eastern allied countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to vote against cutting oil production. Wednesday’s production cut amounts to the largest cut since the beginning of the pandemic and could lead to a dramatic spike in oil prices.

For the most part, the Biden Administration and the mainstream media have been good at downplaying Biden's overall ineffectiveness as a political leader. When gas prices inevitably rise again, we'll see how willing the press and the Democrats are in defending the indefensible.