In what appeared to be a concerted response to U.S. criticism of the cut, numerous OPEC+ producers backed the group’s decision to lower production in November via several statements on Sunday and Monday.

After OPEC+ endorsed earlier this month a decision to lower the headline production target by 2 million barrels per day (bpd) as of November, the United States said last week that Saudi Arabia would face some repercussions for its decision to lead OPEC+ into a significant oil production cut.

A day after President Joe Biden warned that the decision made by OPEC+ will have “consequences,” Saudi Arabia released a statement expressing “its total rejection” of Biden’s and other statements made by Washington on the decision.

A statement from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry last week said: “This decision was taken unanimously by all member states of the OPEC+ group.”

On Sunday and Monday, officials from other OPEC+ producers, including the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Algeria, released statements in which they justified the cut as necessary for the market and underlined that the group’s decision was unanimous.

“There is complete consensus among OPEC+ countries that the best approach in dealing with the oil market conditions during the current period of uncertainty and lack of clarity is a preemptive approach that supports market stability and provides the future with the guidance it needs,” Iraq’s state oil marketing company, SOMO, said in a statement published by Reuters on Sunday.

“I would like to clarify that the latest OPEC+ decision, which was unanimously approved was a pure technical decision, with NO political intentions whatsoever,” tweeted Suhail al-Mazrouei, the UAE’s minister of energy, on Sunday.

According to a statement from Algeria’s Energy Minister, Mohamed Arkab, the choice was “a purely technical response based on purely economic considerations.”