The World's Most Powerful Cartel Just Got Smaller

United Arab Emirates - Freedom House Freedom Score: 18 (Not Free)

On April 28, the third-largest producer in the world’s largest cartel announced its exit. Effective May 1, the UAE left OPEC— without consulting Saudi Arabia, the kingdom that has driven OPEC since 1960.
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The strategic logic: Iran has been a founding OPEC member for 66 years, using the cartel as a venue for international legitimacy even under crushing sanctions. Now the table tilts harder against Tehran on every future production decision. The UAE wants to push output toward 5 million barrels per day, putting downward pressure on prices — relief for American drivers paying the cost of the Iran war. This is genuinely good news for American interests.
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It's also the latest move from a regime that has aided the war on Iran more than any U.S. partner outside Israel. Iran has fired more than 2,800 missiles and drones at the UAE — more than at any other country, Israel included. The WSJ reported this week that Abu Dhabi has been secretly firing back. UAE Mirage jets struck Iran's Lavan Island refinery in early April, knocking it offline for months. The UAE has closed Iran-linked schools in Dubai, denied visas to Iranian citizens, and backed a UN resolution authorizing force to break Tehran's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
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This is the kind of partner — illiberal, yet increasingly indispensable — that forces hard questions.

The UAE sentenced 43 dissidents to life in prison last year in a mass trial under a 2014 counterterrorism law that criminalizes peaceful criticism. Since mid-April, it has expelled up to 15,000 Pakistani Shia workers without charges — bank accounts frozen, families devastated.
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The hard truth: America must sometimes partner with illiberal regimes to defeat worse ones. The UAE's role against Iran is one of those cases.
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What America must never do is sell that partnership.
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​Our Verdict: Engaging illiberal partners against worse enemies is statecraft. Personally profiting from those partnerships is corruption. The first is sometimes necessary. The second is a disgrace to American values.
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​The Trump Administration. Four days before Trump's inauguration, an Emirati firm controlled by the UAE's national security chief bought 49% of World Liberty Financial — the Trump-family crypto venture — for $500 million. The WSJ documented $187 million flowing directly to Trump family entities. Then came the rewards: advanced AI chip sales to the UAE, and a $2 billion investment in Binance — the world's largest crypto exchange, whose founder Trump pardoned last October after his money-laundering conviction — routed through World Liberty.
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A foreign government bought a stake in the president.
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​Sources: Foreign Policy, Human Rights Watch, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

Want the Full Episode?

This is one of three stories in this week's episode on the Global Fight for Freedom. Here are this week's other flashpoints:

1. India Deleted 9 Million Voters. Modi Won.
2. Xi Doesn’t Mind Dead Children. Do We?
3. 16 Bullets Couldn't Stop Him: Freedom Fighter of the Week
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​Get the full episode​