What type of conversation is it giving the other side everything it wants in hopes of getting something in return?
It is a question that even some of President Trump’s own allies are asking themselves after his administration signed a historic agreement to develop a civil nuclear program in Saudi Arabia using American technology. Opponents of the deal, in the United States and Israel, worry that the new deal could allow uranium enrichment—and if so, that Trump just gave Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman the tools he needs to build a bomb. What did America need in return? Too many zips.
At least, that’s how things stood when the deal was finalized yesterday. Then, just before 8 a.m. today, Trump began social networks issuing what appeared to be an after-the-fact decision: The plan, he wrote, “depends entirely on Saudi Arabia joining the venerable and successful Abraham Accords,” a Middle East initiative launched in Trump’s first term designed to mend relations between Israel and the countries of the region.
Trump administration officials argued that the deal is a victory for the “America First” policy because the 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal gives American companies (which already do big business in Saudi Arabia) a leading role in developing the kingdom’s nuclear infrastructure while shutting out foreign competitors. Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, told reporters today that the arrangement “will ultimately benefit American industrial workers and supply chains.”
It may not benefit Trump’s image as a consummate businessman, however. A system for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham accords and, in return, receive protection guarantees and US support to develop a civilian nuclear program has been on the table for years. It almost came to fruition during the Biden administration. But the kingdom received a defense package in November and a nuclear deal this week. None of the agreements made normalization of relations with Israel a condition. “Leave it to this administration to negotiate after the signatures dry up,” Elisa Ewers, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told us.
When the agreement was launched yesterday, US lawmakers and Israeli politicians were surprised by its terms of Riyadh’s laxity. Trump by this morning may have decided to make a promise with his Abraham Accords announcement—so he did what he often does.
“The president wakes up every day, and every day, at least on Middle East policy, is an improvement,” F. Gregory Gause, professor emeritus at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, told us. “He was pushing back on the Saudi deal, and so he sweetened it for people in Congress who might feel that if the Saudis had normal diplomatic relations with Israel, they would have less to worry about.”
Trump, he noted, may retool and remove those conditions if the violence subsides. Last week, the president said that the United States would impose a 20 percent fee on the value of the cargo on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz in response to Iran’s efforts to control the waterway. The next day, the president turned around. “So it could be that by tomorrow, this will be out of the president’s mind,” Gause said. But if he gave the Saudis what they wanted without asking for anything in return, he would also be throwing away all his power.
In 2023, senior officials in the Biden administration was shuttled between Washington and Riyadh, believing they were on the brink of a major breakthrough: Bin Salman, known as MBS, was close to joining the Abraham Accords, which officials saw as a bulwark against Iran’s growing nuclear threat in the region. Negotiations to clarify the details were arranged in mid-October of that year. But those talks broke down after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent Gaza war. After this, Saudi leaders concluded that legalization was not politically acceptable.
Biden administration officials then looked for other ways to persuade the Saudis to resume normalization talks and help secure the Gaza Strip. They highlighted the mutual defense agreement, which includes nuclear cooperation, even though President Biden had declared his dislike for the prince after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Jon Wolfsthal, a former adviser on US-Saudi nuclear cooperation, told us that the Biden administration calculated that “if the United States does not enter the game, especially as a nuclear supplier, one of America’s adversaries might, and that is worse for the national security of the United States.”
But with the 2024 election looming, the Saudi Arabian government gambled that a Trump victory would bring more favorable terms, and talks stalled.
The Saudis were right. Saudi leaders already saw Trump as an ally whose approach was similar to their own: pragmatic, transactional, and largely untroubled by concerns about human rights. The relationship extended beyond formal diplomacy. MBS was close friends with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner during Trump’s first term, communicating directly with him via WhatsApp. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had previously provided $2 billion to Kushner’s private equity firm.
Following his return to the Oval Office, Trump became eager to get Saudi Arabia to mend relations with Israel. As in his first term, Trump chose Saudi Arabia for his first official visit abroad, to arrive as well as an influx of American business executives in an effort to develop deeper corporate ties, especially in technology. During a meeting in Washington, DC, in November, Trump, raising his voice, pressed MBS to join the Abraham Treaty. MBS emphasized that the only way to achieve this would be by agreeing on a path to Palestinian citizenship. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the prospect of an independent Palestinian state.) Still, the United States and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement on a defense deal, which would include the sale of F-35 fighter jets.
Months later, Trump tried to link the extension of the Abraham Accords to his peace plan with Iran, suggesting in a conference call with several regional leaders that they sign up, according to US and Middle Eastern officials. After the talks were over, he called MBS personally to press the issue one more time. But Trump got the same answer. However, talks about the Saudi nuclear program continued.
Tsays the Trump administration that this week’s agreement is designed to help Saudi Arabia develop a civilian-only nuclear force. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who signed the agreement, said in a statement that the terms “adhere to the highest standards of nuclear security and non-proliferation.” The Saudi government said that the agreement supports its domestic efforts to diversify energy sources, and that the government is committed to the “highest international standards” of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation.
But Saudi Arabia has also talked about becoming a nuclear weapons power if Iran could develop its own weapon. Preventing Tehran from doing so is the main goal of the US conflict, but its outcome is uncertain, as is the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. “Saudi Arabia does not want to get any nuclear bomb, but of course if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow that course as soon as possible,” MBS told CBS News in 2018.
Non-proliferation activists claim that the US-Saudi agreement lacks the necessary sanctions to prevent it: no measures to prevent the sharing of technology to enrich uranium and separate plutonium, no commitment by Saudi Arabia to comply with the safety standards of, and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Under the agreement, American companies would build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, and the two countries would study whether Saudi Arabia should eventually enrich its own uranium instead of importing nuclear fuel. Enriching uranium is necessary to generate power for nuclear power plants, but it can also be an important step towards developing a nuclear weapon. “Your best way to avoid proliferation is this kind of very close relationship with the United States, with American technology, that we control, that we monitor, and that is long-term,” Victoria Coates, Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, who now works at the Heritage Foundation, told us.
Trump denied that wealth is on the table. The agreement specifies that the United States will finally decide, after a study is done, if enrichment should not be done, and if that is the conclusion, Saudi Arabia will be prevented from pursuing it by itself or with other countries for 10 years. But giving the United States, instead of international inspectors, that authority may cause other governments to choose their own inspectors as well, and open the door to further proliferation.
“Making this all personal — and ‘you can choose your own inspectors,’ and all that stuff — is a very bad way to go down,” Jon Alterman, a global security scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told us. In theory, he said, the deal could give the Iranians a license and an example to say honestly: “We have Russian inspectors, we have Chinese inspectors, so we’re doing what the Saudis are doing.”
Alterman noted that the United States even has an example of a better arrangement: the 2009 agreement with the United Arab Emirates. “The Emiratis built a strong and secure domestic nuclear program,” Alterman said. “There are strong safeguards against proliferation. And it strengthened the cooperation between the UAE and the United States.” But that is not what the United States asked of Saudi Arabia this week.
