September 18th, 2026: China Is Being Pulled Into Saudi Arabia’s Houthi War & Russia’s Parliamentary Election

it's friday the 18th of september welcome to the president's daily brief i'm mike baker your eyes and ears on the world stage all right let's get briefed first up saudi arabia is turning to china for help as its fight with iran-backed hutis intensifies and its missile defenses are depleted later in the show russia's wartime parliamentary vote gets underway with putin's allies dominating the field and the leading anti-war party excluded i know this is all a bit of a shock but putin apparently isn't allowing any opposition plus the u.s drops venezuela from its drug control blacklist after more than two decades and says colombia could be next and in today's back of the brief a major russian sanctions bill clears the house in the u.s and now heads to president trump's desk but first today's pdb spotlight we're keeping a close eye on the escalating conflict between the iran-backed hutis and saudi arabia and the saudis are now turning to beijing as they look for support to contain a threat that's getting harder to manage and as the white house has reportedly rebuffed the saudis request for additional assistance the latest news comes from reuters which reports that saudi arabia recently appealed directly to china for help dealing with the hutis according to three iranian sources familiar with the discussions beijing then privately contacted the iranian regime and asked them to use their influence to rein in their proxy well that appeal came after the iranian-backed hutis made rapid advances along yemen's red sea coast and around the babal mandep strait leaving saudi oil exports and commercial shipping increasingly exposed now china has publicly called for restraint and dialogue throughout the latest fighting but according to reuters its private message to tehran went further beijing specifically wants iran to use its influence with the hutis to prevent the fighting from spreading further along the region's critical energy routes which of course is in china's self-interest now would it be childish of me to mention that china while calling for restraint publicly has been supporting the iranian regime with dual-use components and the continued purchasing of discounted iranian oil beijing is still iran's largest trading partner and its biggest oil customer according to kepler chinese purchases accounted for more than 80 percent of iran's seaborne oil exports last year at the same time china has enormous economic ties with saudi arabia and the other gulf states and roughly half of iran's seaborne oil exports in the last year and the other half of iran's seaborne oil exports and the other half of iran's seaborne oil exports in the last year and the other half of iran's seaborne oil exports in the last year and the other half of iran's seaborne oil exports in the last year and the other half of china's oil imports come from the middle east so from beijing's perspective despite their support for the iranian regime the huti situation is becoming a significant problem the strait of hormuz is already effectively closed to normal traffic and now the hutis are increasing pressure around babo mandeb on the other side of the arabian peninsula those are two of the most important energy choke points in the world and china depends heavily on both of them tehran's response at least according to the iranian sources who spoke with reuters was essentially that the huti problem can't be separated from the wider war well meaning it's not in iran's interest to tell their proxy group to cease and desist iranian officials reportedly told beijing that peace and stability in the region yes of course because the iranian regime is all about peace and stability in the region depend on ending the u.s israeli war against iran china for its part apparently stops short of threatening tehran with economic consequences if it refused to cooperate but the fact that saudi arabia went to beijing in the first place tells us something about riad's current position because the kingdom isn't only looking for diplomatic help it's also reportedly trying to find more weapons to defend itself the associated press reports that saudi arabia is running low on missile interceptors after repeated huti missile attacks two regional officials told the ap that riad has sought air defense assistance from the u.s france britain pakistan and egypt one of those officials said the situation is complicated by the fact that the u.s has also burned through significant interceptor stocks during six months of war with iran saudi officials have not publicly confirmed that request and remember what saudi arabia has to defend there we're talking about military bases government facilities population centers and an enormous network of oil infrastructure of course some of their military facilities are home to u.s personnel and key u.s military assets a key pipeline carrying saudi crude west toward the red sea has already been knocked offline while the hutis have been targeting saudi infrastructure and shipping but there's another interesting piece to all of this even as saudi arabia appears to be running low on some defensive weapons the kingdom may now be reaching deeper into its offensive arsenal the wall street journal reports that debris found in yemen appears to be from a chinese-made dongfan 15 ballistic missile fired by saudi arabia if that assessment is confirmed it would be the first known time that the saudis have used a ballistic missile in combat during their long fight with the iranian-backed hutis saudi arabia has possessed chinese ballistic missiles for decades but they've largely remained out of public view so saudi arabia is asking china to pressure iran into restraining their proxy group in yemen the same china that's been providing critical support to the iranian regime support that has allowed iran to continue funding and supporting the hutis and that puts beijing in an increasingly well important position china has deep economic ties to saudi arabia enormous leverage through its purchases of iranian oil and other support to the regime and a strong interest in keeping both homo and babo mandeb open to international shipping beijing has also brokered the agreement that restored diplomatic relations between saudi arabia and iran back in 2023 for saudi arabia the media challenge is much more straightforward the kingdom has to stop huti attacks protect its oil infrastructure and shipping and rebuild its missile defenses all while trying to keep this latest conflict from expanding into an even larger regional war yeah 2026 is really shaping up all right coming up next russians head to the polls for a sham election with no real opposition on the ballot and the u.s takes venezuela off its drug control blacklist i'll be right back hey mike baker here now let me ask you a question how often do you have to jump start your day with nicotine or caffeine just to get yourself going and then of course you end up with the jitters or lack of 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for the country's first parliamentary election since the full-scale invasion of ukraine began more than four and a half years ago and president putin is making it clear that he wants the vote to send a message well beyond the makeup of russia's next parliament putin has framed the election as a demonstration of national unity and support for his war in ukraine urging russians to turn out and show their support for the country's troops which shouldn't be difficult for voters since the opposition isn't on the ballot russians showing up to vote will have a choice between putin's candidates who support his policies and putin's candidates who support his policies now for those of you who don't follow russian elections closely the election process will have voting running through sunday with roughly 111 million eligible voters choosing all 450 members of russia's lower house of parliament which is known as the state duma half of those 450 seats are distributed among political parties based on their share of the nationwide vote while the other half are won by individual candidates running in local districts and no surprises here putin's united russia party currently controls more than two-thirds of the duma and is once again expected to dominate the vote now there are nine other parties competing on the nationwide ballot which could give the impression that the duma is going to be the one that's going to be the one that's going to be there's diversity of platforms being presented to the public but despite their different names and political labels all nine broadly support putin's policies the communist party for example may occasionally criticize aspects of the government, but has remained firmly behind the invasion, alongside the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and the social-democratic Adjust Russia Party. Even the New People Party, which initially presented itself as a younger and more liberal alternative when it entered parliament in 2021, has since embraced Putin's policies. The major exception is Yabloko, a liberal party and the only registered political party in Russia that openly opposes Putin's war. And you can probably guess the repercussions of taking that stance in Putin's Russia. Yabloko was initially approved to participate in the election, but Russia's Supreme Court stepped in and removed the party from the nationwide ballot in August, citing several reasons, including its opposition to the war, which the court said amounted to seeking a violation of Russia's territorial integrity. Authorities have also barred most candidates from competing in individual constituency races, although a small number do remain on the ballot. And the crackdown goes well beyond the election. Yabloko's deputy chairman was sentenced to seven years in prison in June over comments about the war, while another senior party member was sentenced to more than 11 years just last month. In short, the Kremlin moved to ensure that the country's leading anti-war party is largely excluded from the weekend vote. And of course, all of this comes as the costs of the war are becoming increasingly difficult to insulate from ordinary Russians. The country is dealing with economic stagnation and pressure on living standards, while Ukrainian drone attacks have repeatedly struck oil refineries and other infrastructure deep inside Russia. We've also been tracking Putin's declining approval numbers and other signs of growing public fatigue with a five-year mark. Still, the Kremlin appears determined to prevent that frustration from translating a serious political challenge, and as I mentioned, is urging Russians to use the occasion to demonstrate their unity and support for the war. Notably, the election will also extend into occupied Ukrainian territory. For the first time in a Russian parliamentary vote, Moscow is including residents of four Ukrainian regions that it illegally annexed back in 2022, along with Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014. Ukraine, meanwhile, has condemned the voting in those territories and is urging foreign governments not to recognize the results. Okay, I want to shift now to Venezuela. The U.S. has made a significant concession based on the country's perceived efforts to combat the drug trade. For more than two decades, the U.S. determined year after year that the regime in Caracas, led by then-dictator Nicolas Maduro, was not doing enough to meet its international drug control obligations. President Trump has now taken them off of that blacklist. He made that change official. The government's annual assessment of the country's most heavily involved in producing or transporting illegal drugs. The latest version of that assessment was published by the State Department on Wednesday. Now, Washington still considers the country a major transit hub for narcotics. What has changed is what the U.S. believes that Venezuelan authorities are doing about it. As I've discussed here on the PDB over the past several months, Washington has, of course, been working with the interim government, led by Delcy Rodriguez, who previously served as Maduro's vice president. That cooperation, according to President Trump, is now paying dividends. He specifically pointed to an operation led by Venezuelan authorities that killed a notorious Trender Aragua leader, the gang known as TDA, one of the most notorious transnational gangs. The president says he now expects Rodriguez's government to build on that progress by dismantling narco-terrorist groups and stopping more drugs from moving through Venezuela. Well, Colombia could be next, with President Trump hinting that its new conservative government in Colombia may have a path off that blacklist as well. Washington placed the country in the, quote, failed demonstrably category last year after the Trump administration concluded that Bogota was not doing enough to combat cocaine production. Now, that came during a bitter period in relations between Washington and Colombia under former President Gustavo Petro, with cocaine production a major source of friction between the two. The U.S. president said that the U.S. government is not doing enough to combat cocaine production. Now, the U.S. Now, the U.S. Now, the U.S. government prove it's serious about dismantling the drug networks that have operated inside Colombia for decades. Trump says that means aggressively eradicating coca crops and targeting the narco-terrorist organizations responsible for producing and trafficking cocaine. If Colombia delivers that progress over the coming year, the president says he will consider lifting its failed designation as well. Again, Venezuela's removal from the failed list does not mean that Washington no longer considers it a major part of the drug trade. It remains on a separate list of major drug-producing or drug-transit countries alongside Colombia, Mexico, every country in Central America, several nations across South America and the Caribbean, as well as six countries in Asia, including China. Did I miss anyone? All right, coming up in the back of the brief, the House approves new sanctions targeting Russian officials and key sectors of Moscow's economy. More on that when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here with a pro tip on how to look your best. And it's simple. All you got to do is rely on Quince. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. 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If you don't mind, tell them the PDB sent you. In today's back of the brief, Congress is putting Russia and the countries helping support Putin's war on notice. After more than a year of negotiations, the House has approved a sweeping sanctions package, sending it to President Trump for his signature. The measure cleared the House Wednesday by a vote of 262 to 159, after passing the Senate 86 to 11 last month. The president is expected to sign it. Now, aside from increasing pressure on Russian President Putin's regime, the bill carries considerable symbolic weight. It's named after the late South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Washington's most outspoken Russian hawks, who spent more than a year building the package before his death back in July. The bill also represents Washington's most ambitious new effort to support Ukraine, since Trump refused to sign it. The bill will return to the White House, breaking nearly two years of congressional gridlock following the 2024 emergency aid package. And I want to stress here that this is not simply another round of sanctions targeting a handful of people around Putin. The bill goes after Kremlin officials, banks, and key pillars of Russia's war economy. It also targets Moscow's so-called Shadow Fleet, the illicit network of tankers that the Kremlin uses to keep Russian energy moving around the world while evading Western sanctions. But the most consequential part of this package may be what it does outside Russia. The bill directs Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from countries ranking among the five largest importers of Russian oil and natural gas. Now, that's aimed squarely at major Russian energy customers such as China and India. The choice for those countries would be pretty straightforward. Continue purchasing cheap Russian energy, or risk paying considerably more, to sell their own goods in the American market. There are some exceptions here. Those smaller countries that account for less than 15% of Russia's natural gas exports exports can avoid some penalties if they take significant steps to reduce those purchases the legislation also allows Washington to penalize governments helping Moscow circumvent the oil sanctions already in place now as those of you who followed the war in Ukraine know the White House has not always moved in one direction here Trump has criticized blank check aid packages and he initially resisted this legislation out of fear of stoking Russia's aggression but now he's preparing to sign it so you ask well what changed that's a good question well rather than committing billions more in direct aid this bill gives Trump another way to confront Moscow using America's economic power against Putin's war machine and the countries that are keeping it funded the turn came after lawmakers included something that the president wanted a five-year extension of existing sanctions against Iran Republicans overwhelmingly supported the final bill while Democrats split sharply 58 joined Republicans in supporting the legislation another 152 opposed it warning that Trump could use the new tariff Authority against American allies in Europe and potentially raise prices at home House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats would continue supporting the Ukrainian people until victory is won quote but this bill does not provide a path to that other Democrats disagreed such as Representative Steny Hoyer warning that if Congress failed to pass the bill there would be quote Cheers in the Kremlin and tears in Kiev end quote oh how poetic Ukrainian President Zelensky has been making the same case he spent months lobbying Congress and made a direct appeal to senators shortly before they approved the package last month Zelensky acknowledged that the legislation was not perfect but argued that during a war it can be better to make a not so perfect decision than to do nothing the legislation now will land on the president's desk for a decision and that my friends is the president's Daily Brief for Friday the 18th of September if you have any questions or comments and I hope you do just reach out to me at pdb at the first tv.com and lest we forget as if I would let you every Friday evening and it's Friday at 10 p.m on the first TV we launch a brand new episode of our extended weekend show the pdb situation report you can also catch it in past episodes on our YouTube channel just wander on over to YouTube and search up at president's Daily Brief it's also available on podcast platforms everywhere I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the pdb afternoon bulletin until then stay informed stay safe stay cool foreign Thank you.