On the way back from the Yalta conference in 1945, Franklin Roosevelt made an unexpected stop.

He met Ibn Saud, the first Saudi monarch on board the USS Quincy,

more than Egypt's great bitter lake.

Wary of the lack of privacy on a Navy vessel the king had left his wives behind

but his entourage did include an astrologer and a herd of goats.

To seal the new pact, one of the animals was slaughtered on the deck of the warship.

The Saudi kingdom became one of America's oldest continuous allies and a regular bit part in the drama of presidential politics.

With 199 days to go, this is checks and balance. I'm John Priddo, the economist's US editor, and this is a podcast about the 2020 elections.

Each week we take one big theme shaping American politics and

explore it in depth. Today is America an energy superpower.

There's been very little global cooperation on the pandemic,

but President Trump scored a big diplomatic win this week by getting oil

producing nations to agree to cut output. The deal ended a price war between Saudi Arabia

and Russia. Combined with the slump in demand caused by the coronavirus,

it had meant oil prices fell by half.

Trump says the deal will save thousands of American energy jobs.

But pushing oil prices higher in an election year is

applying more common in Caracas or Moscow than in Washington.

In this episode we'll look into the history of America's struggle for energy independence,

the fraught Saudi relationship, and figure out how energy politics might impact the election.

As ever, I'm joined by John Fasman and Charlotte Howard.

John Charlotte, I think I've been locked down for about a month now.

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