- Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden exited the race.
- Foreign leaders are figuring out how they would deal with Harris if she wins the presidency.
Joe Biden's withdrawal from the US presidential election is giving foreign leaders a lot to think about.
Among them — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who one expert said would likely be wary of his presumed successor Kamala Harris.
"A liberal presidential candidate like Kamala Harris, close to human rights activists will also be worrisome," said Mathew Burrows, a senior member of the research team at the Stimson Center think tank.
Crown Prince Mohammed would be worried that, under liberal Harris, the Democrats would be more vocal about the "dismal Saudi human-rights record," said Burrows.
Biden promised to take a hard line with Saudi Arabia, particularly after its 2018 killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Harris, on the 2020 campaign trail, was also vocal about the killing, calling it "an attack on journalists everywhere" and supporting legislation in the Senate to make more information public about his death.
Around the same time, she said the US needed to "fundamentally reevaluate our relationship with Saudi Arabia, using our leverage to stand up for American values and interests."
The Biden White House ended up reaching a kind of accord with Crown Prince Mohammed, focusing on opposing Iran and seeking stability in the Middle East.
Burrows said that Harris could complicate this. A more confrontational nominee could prove an obstacle to the US goal of Saudi Arabia normalizing its relations with Israel, another key regional US ally, he said.
The US has sought to broker better ties between Arab states and Israel partly to form a counterweight to Iranian regional influence.
Harris has also been a prominent supporter of the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, all of whom are legally inferior to men in Saudi law.
Same-sex relations in Saudi Arabia are illegal, all women are required to have legal guardians who are men, and Saudi women who advocate for more rights can be harshly punished.
Burrows also said Crown Prince Mohammed may be wary of relying on Harris after seeing how a US leader could be forced out by pressure from within their own party.
Fawaz Gerges, a Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, echoed that sentiment. "Biden's stepping down came probably as a shock to Middle Eastern rulers who are not used to giving up power that easily," Gerges told BI. "Their motto is 'till death do us part.'"
However, both experts said Saudi officials would likely expect a lot of continuity from a Harris presidency, extending Biden's existing approach to the Middle East.