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When President Biden meets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, he will be following in the footsteps of presidents like Jimmy Carter, who flew to Tehran in 1977 to exchange toasts with the shah of Iran on New Year’s Eve.
当拜登总统在沙特阿拉伯会见王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼时，他将会追随吉米·卡特等总统的脚步。卡特曾于1977年飞往德黑兰，在新年前夕与伊朗国王互相敬酒。
Like the prince, the shah was an unelected monarch with a tarnished human rights record.
与这位王子一样，这位国王也是一位人权记录不佳的非民选君主。
But Mr. Carter was obliged to celebrate with him for a cause that was of great concern to people back home: cheaper gasoline and secure oil supplies.
但是，卡特不得不和他一起庆祝，因为美国人非常关心一件事: 更便宜的汽油价格与稳定的石油供应。
As Mr. Carter and other presidents learned, Mr. Biden has precious few tools to bring down costs at the pump, especially when Russia, one of the world’s largest energy producers, has started an unprovoked war against a smaller neighbor.
正如卡特和其他总统所知晓的，拜登几乎没有什么工具可以降低加油站的成本，尤其是在俄罗斯这个世界上最大的能源生产国之一，对一个较小的邻国发动了一场战争的情况下。
In Mr. Carter’s time, oil supplies that Western countries needed were threatened by revolutions in the Middle East.
在卡特时代，西方国家所需的石油供应受到了中东革命的威胁。
During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden pledged to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” for the assassination of a prominent dissident, Jamal Khashoggi.
在2020年的竞选中，拜登承诺要把沙特阿拉伯变成一个“社会孤立国”，因为沙特暗杀了著名异见人士贾马尔·哈苏吉。
But officials said last week that he planned to visit the kingdom this summer.
但官员们上周表示，他计划今年夏天访问沙特。
It was just the latest sign that oil has again regained its centrality in geopolitics.
这只是石油在地缘政治中重新占据中心地位的最新迹象。
Just a few years ago, many lawmakers in Washington and oil and gas executives in Texas were patting themselves on the back for an energy boom that had turned the United States into a net exporter of oil and petroleum products and made it more energy independent.
就在几年前，华盛顿的许多议员与德克萨斯州的石油和天然气高管还在为一场能源热潮而沾沾自喜，这场能源热潮让美国变成了石油和石油产品的净出口国，并使其在能源上更加独立。
With prices rising, that achievement now looks illusory.
随着能源价格的上涨，这一成就现在看起来是虚幻的。
The United States is the world’s biggest oil and natural gas producer, but it accounts for only about 12 percent of the global petroleum supply.
美国是世界上最大的石油和天然气生产国，但美国只占全球石油供应的12%左右。
The price of oil, the principal cost in gasoline, can still shoot up or tumble depending on events halfway around the world.
石油的价格主要影响汽油的成本，前者价格仍然会因地球另一端发生的事件而暴涨或暴跌。
And no president, no matter how powerful or competent, can do much to control it.
任何一位总统，无论多么强大或有能力，都无法有效地控制其价格。
Those facts are cold comfort to Americans who are finding that a stop at the gas station can easily cost a hundred dollars, much more than just a year earlier.
这些事实对美国人来说并没有什么安慰作用，他们发现在加油站停一次很容易就会花费100美元，远远超过一年前的价格。
When fuel prices rise, consumers demand action and can turn against presidents who seem unwilling or unable to bring them back down.
当燃料价格上涨时，消费者会要求采取行动，并可能会转而反对那些似乎不愿或无法让油价回落的总统。
Always looking ahead to the next election when their jobs or their party’s hold on power is at stake, presidents can find it impossible not to try to cajole or plead with foreign and domestic oil producers to drill and pump more oil, faster.
当下一次选举关系到他们的工作或他们政党的权力时，总统们总是会发现，他们不可能不试图劝诱或恳求国内外石油生产商更快地钻探和开采更多的石油。
