SerpApi.Org
President Donald Trump has agreed to supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear-energy technology, a dream that the kingdom’s royal family has desired for many years, and—more swooning still—the deal doesn’t require the Saudis to make any promises or concessions in return.
The Biden administration held talks on a similar arrangement but demanded as a condition that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel. The Saudis would agree to that only if Israel resumed negotiations toward a separate state for Palestinians. Israel would not agree to that, so the talks went nowhere.
Trump has made no such demands of the Saudis in his accord. He prepared to sign a “123 Agreement,” named after Section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, which allows the U.S. to assist other countries to develop civilian nuclear energy as long as they pledge not to convert the fuel into nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has signed 50 such agreements, but the countries involved have also been among the 144 that have signed the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing international agents to inspect their atomic plants. Saudi Arabia long ago signed the NPT but has not signed the Additional Protocol. As a result, it is unclear how the U.S. or the International Atomic Energy Agency would verify that the Saudis don’t militarize their program.
The United Arab Emirates, which signed a 123 Agreement in 2009, further agreed to a so-called gold standard, pledging never to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent fuel from a reactor—two ways in which a country could develop a nuclear weapon. The deal that Trump is signing with the Saudis carries no such provision. Not only that, but it explicitly opens the door to possible uranium enrichment, and although Trump spokespeople claim that the process would be kept in a “black box” managed by U.S. plant managers, the Saudis might figure out a way to break into the box—or build an enrichment facility elsewhere (plausible, given the absence of international inspectors).
The move, which was reported on Tuesday and set to be announced on Wednesday, has provoked frantic protest from all political factions in Israel. Avigdor Lieberman, a former defense minister who leads the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu party, posted on X: “Everyone needs to understand that the Saudi civilian nuclear program will end up with nuclear weapons and lead to a mad arms race across the Middle East.” Ehud Barak, an opposition leader who was once prime minister and defense minister, said, “We will oppose this in every way,” adding that Trump letting the Saudis sign the deal, without first normalizing relations with Israel, “is a sign of the loss of trust” between the U.S. and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Saudi Arabia poses no threat to Israel at the moment, owing to their shared enmity toward Iran. This could change, though, as the region’s geopolitical climate shifts. In any case, Israel’s security has rested in part on its status as the only Middle Eastern country to possess atomic weapons—about 200 of them—and it would lose some of the leverage that comes from that arsenal if another nation in the region acquired even a pocketful of nukes.
Trump probably wouldn’t have signed this deal a couple of years ago, given his close ties with Netanyahu and the strong support for Israel in Congress. This political backing—from Trump, Congress, and the public—has eroded in recent years, as a result of Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank. The political debate over the Saudi deal could highlight just how much favor Israel has lost here. Under Section 123, Congress has 90 days to review all such nuclear projects, and many questions about this program will no doubt be raised. But most Republicans are likely to fall in line, and even if Congress somehow votes the deal down, the margin won’t be large enough to override Trump’s all-but-certain veto.
What the United States gets out of this deal is unclear, except for the one thing that Trump craves as a crucial part of every deal he makes—money. Westinghouse Electric, whose AP1000 reactor would be the centerpiece of this deal, stands to make a lot of money, which would spill over in the form of billions of dollars to the entire nuclear industry, which Trump supports but which is otherwise having a hard time starting big projects.
It is unclear who took part in the decision to strike this deal. Rumors are aswirl that Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East emissary Jared Kushner played a big role. (Kushner has developed a friendship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who poured $2 billion of his country’s funds into the young man’s private investment company.) There is no sign that Trump called any National Security Council meetings to discuss the subject. (He almost never calls NSC meetings to discuss any subject.) Marco Rubio, who doubles as secretary of state and national security adviser, was in the Philippines, attending an Asian security conference, when the announcement was made.
The Wall Street Journal noted in its story about the deal that back in 2018, during Trump’s first term, a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers had sponsored a bill to block nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia unless Congress voted explicitly to approve it. The bill never came up for a vote. Among its sponsors was then-Sen. Rubio.
During the 90-day review period, Congress might want to ask Rubio about that.
