The U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Martina Strong believes the U.S. is unequivocally the most important foreign policy actor in the Middle East.

Her comments come roughly one year after President Joe Biden threatened “consequences” for Saudi Arabia after the OPEC kingpin slashed oil production along with its allies against Washington’s wishes.

Biden’s administration has been notably quiet about recent OPEC+ output cuts, however, even as oil prices have rallied close to $100 a barrel.

The U.S. is seeking to orchestrate a delicate balancing act in the region, particularly as it pushes for the normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia and responds to China’s growing influence.

Saudi Arabia has recently shown signs of steering toward China and Russia after rekindling relations with Iran through Beijing-mediated talks and receiving an invitation to join the emerging economies’ BRICS alliance.

Asked by CNBC’s Dan Murphy whether the U.S. remained the most important foreign policy actor in the region, Strong replied, “Absolutely. I have no doubt about it. Our leadership is really unquestioned and apparent in every, I would say, region of the world — and this is no different.”

Strong said the U.S. is “working very closely together with the UAE and with our other partners here in the region on our core national security priorities as well as our national economic priorities.”

“When it comes to security, President Biden has put forward a very positive, strong vision for our cooperation with the region. It’s based on diplomacy, it’s based on deterrence, de-escalation and, at the end of all this, of course, is prosperity,” she added.

“We’ve been doing that successfully here in the UAE for over 50 years, and we look forward to doing so for many years to come. I would say what is perhaps unique about our partnership with the UAE is how future-oriented and forward-looking that partnership is.”

Strong said the U.S. and UAE would continue to work together in response to the climate crisis. The UAE will host the COP28 climate conference from Nov. 30 through to Dec. 12.

— CNBC’s Ruxandra Iordache contributed to this report.

India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas warned that there’ll be “organized chaos” if oil prices break above $100 per barrel, but said the South Asian nation is well positioned to weather higher costs. 

“If the price goes above $100, it’s not going to be in the interest of either the producing country or anyone’s interest. You will have large, organized chaos,” Hardeep Singh Puri told CNBC’s Dan Murphy during a panel at the ADIPEC oil and gas conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.

But “you should not be worrying about the impact on India. India’s a large economy that has a lot of domestic production. We’ll cut back, we’ll do something or the other,” Puri said.

Last week, oil prices surged to their highest levels in more than a year with U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures hitting $95.03 per barrel. Prices have since pulled back, standing at $89.44 a barrel in Wednesday morning trade in Asia.

While Puri was confident that India could navigate higher prices, he warned that other nations may not be able to do so.

“I would worry about what happens to other parts of the developing world … that is really a worrying point,” Puri said, highlighting that rising prices in the last 18 months have placed “100 million people into abject poverty.” 

“They had to go from reasonably priced gas and cooking fuels [to] wet wood, coal or whatever they could get. That is the problem.” 

The minister said on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, that oil producers need to be mindful of the struggles consuming countries face. 

“During the pandemic, when crude oil prices crashed, the world came together to stabilize the prices to make it sustainable for the producers. Now, as the world is at cusp of economic recession & slowdown, oil producers need to show [the] same sensitivity towards the consuming countries,” he said in a post.

He explained that major energy companies like Indian Oil Corporation, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Bharat Petroleum have all set net-zero targets well ahead of 2070.

“When prices shoot up, people’s resolve to transition works faster … There’s a realization that we’ve got to get off our backsides and do things which are important.”