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No “Gold Standard,” No Israel Clause: What the Saudi Nuclear Deal Actually Says (MBN)

August 7, 2026 , https://npolicy.org/no-gold-standard-no-israel-clause-what-the-saudi-nuclear-deal-actually-says-mbn/

Two weeks ago, President Trump was about to send the Hill a U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperative agreement. After a torrent of criticism from Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, though, he changed his mind and insisted that the United States would not help Saudi Arabia make nuclear fuel and that the deal would not come into force until Saudi Arabia recognized Israel.

The question now is what’s next. Below is an interview I granted to the U.S. government’s Middle East Broadcasting Network that takes a stab at where we’re headed.

First, if the deal proceeds as the U.S. Energy Department and the press have described it will provide the Saudis with a pathway to make nuclear fuel—the most difficult and essential step to making nuclear weapons. The problem here is that Israel and the United States have been bombing a variety of nuclear sites to throttle this very same activity in Iran.

In an attempt to avoid this contradiction, the Energy Department insists there will be no enrichment unless a two-year study concludes that Saudi nuclear fuel-making is economically sound and can be rendered safe. Yet, as I note below, the premise of conducting such a study—that the answer could be yes—is disingenuous. We already know the honest answer is no.

The second problem with the agreement is that it does not require Riyadh to adopt international nuclear inspections (known as Protocol I visits) that would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to go anywhere, anytime outside declared nuclear sites. One hundred and forty four nations have already granted authority to the IAEA to conduct such inspections on their soil. Saudi Arabia has refused.

This suggests that Riyadh has something it wants to hide, possibly including a covert nuclear weapons program. Saudi officials are already on record that the Kingdom must get nuclear weapons if it believes Iran is acquiring them. Saudi Arabia also has tight connections to Pakistan, which has mastered both enrichment and nuclear weapons design.

Finally, by creating a pathway to dangerous nuclear weapons-related activities, it will set a precedent for Riyadh’s neighbors, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt—nations pursuing large nuclear power programs.

The Energy Department’s rejoinder is that if the United States doesn’t help Saudi Arabia make nuclear fuel, Russia and China will with fewer controls. That gets things backwards. In fact, no country—not the United States, not China or Russia—during the last half-century has offered to transfer nuclear fuel-making technology to states lacking nuclear weapons. The last country to do that was the United States in the 1960s with India, which used the assistance to set off a “peaceful” nuclear explosion.

If, as proposed, the United States violates this sound standard by helping Saudi Arabia enrich uranium, the very thing our Energy Department says it is worried China and Russia might do, is what our violation of this standard will ensure.

The President has yet to send the Saudi nuclear agreement to Hill for review. As I argue in the attached interview, it would be best if it never left his inbox or, at least, our government renegotiated to include the very things President Trump now insists are necessary—no enrichment and Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Israel.

August 4, 2026

Henry Sokolski Interview with Middle East Broadcasting Networks

No “Gold Standard,” No Israel Clause: What the Saudi Nuclear Deal Actually Says

The Trump administration has yet to formally send to Congress the nuclear cooperation agreement it signed with Saudi Arabia last month.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed a Section 123 agreement – the legal step that allows American companies to share nuclear technology with another country – in Riyadh on July 22. The Department of Energy said at the time that the agreement would “now be transmitted to Congress for review.”

Until it is, the review clock cannot start. Once transmitted, the agreement takes effect “after 90 consecutive legislative days of sitting before Congress” – days Congress is actually in session, not calendar days – “which could be sometime before the end of this year,” said Henry Sokolski, who runs the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and served as the Pentagon’s deputy for nonproliferation policy in the George H.W. Bush administration.

The administration has also complicated its own deal. A day after the signing, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Saudi Arabia would not be allowed to enrich uranium, and that the entire arrangement depended on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords and establishing relations with Israel.

Those conditions do not appear in what the two governments actually signed, Sokolski told MBN.

“I’m with the Saudis on this. I think they’ve got it right, which is: you’ve got to be kidding. We signed documents. They didn’t have anything in it about these other conditions,” Sokolski said. “It is not part of the deal.”

Saudi Arabia has said repeatedly that it will not normalize relations with Israel unless Israel agrees to Palestinian statehood — a condition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused.

Sokolski noted that the president retains one lever regardless: even after the agreement takes effect, he can decline to approve nuclear exports to Saudi Arabia. “He has that power. But it’s not something that he’s legally bound to do. It’s something that’s executive discretion,” he said.

What the deal actually allows

A full assessment is still impossible. The text of the agreement has not been published, nor have two side letters that accompany it. “We haven’t seen them,” Sokolski said. “Of course, we haven’t even seen the 123 agreement yet.” Most of what is known comes from briefings the Energy Department has given reporters.

What is known is this: once in force, the deal defers the central question to a study. “There’ll be a two-year study on, well, is the making of nuclear fuel by enriching uranium really all that economical for Saudi Arabia,” Sokolski said.

If the study says yes, American firms would build an enrichment plant on Saudi soil, operating under U.S. oversight.

“If the conclusion of that is yes, then the United States would actually build a plant, an enrichment plant, that would bring the most sensitive technologies that we’re now currently bombing in Iran to Saudi Arabian soil,” Sokolski said, referring to the U.S. military campaign aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

If the study says no, “the agreement somehow will bind the Saudis to not get enrichment from anyone else for 10 years,” Sokolski said, citing reporting on two side letters that have not been made public. A separate side agreement, he added, would limit Saudi reactor purchases to Westinghouse — a company headquartered in Pennsylvania but owned by two Canadian firms.

A departure from the “gold standard”

The agreement breaks with the terms Washington set for the United Arab Emirates in 2009 – an arrangement so strict it became known as the “gold standard.” Abu Dhabi made a legal commitment to forgo both uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent fuel, the two most direct pathways to a nuclear weapon. It also accepted the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol, an inspection regime that lets IAEA monitors examine nuclear-related sites a country has not formally declared.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to neither.

“In the case of Saudi Arabia, the forswearing did not occur at all,” Sokolski said. “Worse, they did not agree to the Additional Protocol — which raises the question: do they have something to hide, or do they think they will?”

“144 countries – almost all the countries in the world – have agreed to the Additional Protocol,” he added. “Not Saudi Arabia.”

Supporters of the deal argue that American oversight of a Saudi facility is better than pushing Riyadh toward Russia or China, which might offer looser terms. Sokolski is skeptical that American control would survive contact with reality.

“We have this expression in the United States: possession is 90 percent of the law. If you have something on your soil, you can always tell the Americans to leave. And there you go – you have it,” he said.

A declared facility, he added, does nothing to rule out a covert program – especially without the Additional Protocol, which exists precisely to let inspectors chase undeclared activity.

A history of finding out too late

Sokolski pointed to Saudi Arabia’s record of acquiring missile capabilities without Washington managing to stop it in advance. “The track record there is 100 percent consistent. Every time they’ve gotten a missile, it was too late for us to do anything to block it,” he said. The Washington Post has reported that Riyadh secretly bought Chinese ballistic missiles in the 1980s, and that Washington learned of the deal only after the missiles had arrived and construction of their bases had begun inside the kingdom.

The stakes are raised by the Saudi crown prince’s own words. In 2018, Mohammed bin Salman told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that if Iran builds a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would “follow suit as soon as possible.”

“In the case of Saudi Arabia, they’ve been pretty clear that if they think Iran’s getting a bomb, they have to get one too,” Sokolski said.

The fight in Congress

The deal “hasn’t sat well with a lot of people on the Hill,” Sokolski said, including some staunch Trump supporters – among them Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, who has been “quite emphatic saying there’s no way he’s going to support this.”

Blocking it is hard, but not impossible. “You don’t need many Republican senators to join a whole lot of Democrats to pass a piece of legislation,” Sokolski said, especially if Democrats take the House next year. The president could veto such a bill – but, he added, “you do not, as a president, want to see that coming to your desk.”

He suggested two narrower options for Congress: bar the use of American funds to implement any part of the agreement that permits nuclear fuel production inside Saudi Arabia, or write in an explicit condition that cooperation cannot lead to an enrichment facility.

The regional echo

The consequences do not stop at Saudi Arabia’s borders. The U.S.-UAE agreement contains a consultation clause triggered if Washington gives another country in the region more generous terms – and granting Riyadh a future path to enrichment, Sokolski said, could prompt Abu Dhabi to demand a renegotiation of its own deal. Egypt and Turkey could invoke the Saudi precedent to press their own claims to a full nuclear fuel cycle on their territory.

“Folks assume the worst when someone says they’re going to do something and they have the means to do it,” he said.

Sokolski worries the agreement could unravel a policy Washington has held since India’s nuclear test in the 1970s: refusing to help non-nuclear-weapon states produce nuclear fuel. Russia and China have largely taken the same public position, he said — but an American exception for Saudi Arabia could invite others to make their own.

The argument that the United States must cooperate because someone else will anyway is, he said, “a self-fulfilling fallacy.”

“People say, well, if you’re going to do that, then we got to do that,” he said.

Not settled yet

For all his criticism, Sokolski stressed that nothing is final. The economic study has not begun, Congress has not reviewed the agreement, and the administration could still tighten its terms or attach conditions to implementation. The deal, he said, looked like “a trial balloon” whose drafters “may have been a little too clever by half, not knowing exactly what they were locking into.”

“I just don’t know how the story ends,” he said, “and it could end very badly.”

To read the full piece, click here.

August 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s nuclear deal: a disaster for the Middle East?

No, the real reason is to gain atomic weapons to protect itself against its main foe: Iran. MbS has made no secret of his desire to build a bomb, and the deal would be a concrete step in that direction. Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, it appears to permit nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil, thus enabling Riyadh to follow the likes of India, Israel and Pakistan in covertly enriching uranium to weapons-grade level

The hard truth is that the “era of non-proliferation is coming to an end”

Well, is it on or is it off? No one’s quite sure, said Al Jazeera (Doha). Two weeks ago, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a multibillion-dollar deal allowing US companies to build and operate nuclear power plants on Saudi soil over the next 30 years.

But a day later, President Trump added a new condition, via social media: Saudi Arabia must fall in line with the UAE and other Arab nations that have signed the Abraham Accords, and recognise the state of Israel.

‘Reckless’ agreement

And that may prove a deal breaker, said David Frum in The Atlantic. Riyadh had been working towards this landmark pact for almost two decades. Thanks to the savvy of its de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who ensured the private equity firm of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would get its share of the billion-dollar nuclear licensing deals at stake, he almost got it over the line.

But now it must surely be in doubt, said Mohamad Elmasry on Middle East Eye. Riyadh has vowed it won’t normalise relations until Israel guarantees Palestinian statehood. And MbS has reportedly told US officials that hostility towards Israel is so great among Saudis in the wake of Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, that to sign a normalisation treaty would probably get him assassinated.

It’s obvious why the Saudis still badly want this nuclear deal, said Joseph Cirincione on MS Now (New York). It’s not, as they claim, to diversify their energy profile: that makes no sense for a nation sitting on an ocean of oil and blessed with the ideal wind and solar conditions for generating renewable energy – a far cheaper option.

No, the real reason is to gain atomic weapons to protect itself against its main foe: Iran. MbS has made no secret of his desire to build a bomb, and the deal would be a concrete step in that direction. Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, it appears to permit nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil, thus enabling Riyadh to follow the likes of India, Israel and Pakistan in covertly enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

‘Guiding hand’

Who knows what’ll happen if this “reckless” deal goes ahead, said Mitchell Plitnick on Mondoweiss (New York). The “gold standard” nuclear-power pact that the US signed with the United Arab Emirates in 2009 required the UAE to forego the ability to enrich uranium, and obliged it to submit to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections: this Saudi deal has no such restrictions.

Which is why it would inevitably trigger a Middle East arms race, said Azriel Bermant in Foreign Policy. If the deal proceeds, Iran would openly seek its own nuclear deterrent, something it has so far officially forsworn. “It beggars belief that the US went to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon yet now acts in a way that is an open invitation for Tehran to weaponise.” And in a way that would also pour “proliferation kerosene” on Turkey and Egypt’s “smouldering nuclear ambitions”, said Matthew Kroenig and Henry Sokolski in The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s deal invites disaster.

Actually, the US is doing the right thing, said the Washington Examiner. The hard truth is that the “era of non-proliferation is coming to an end”: Pakistan and North Korea are both testing nuclear weapons. Given that sobering reality, better the US offer “a guiding hand” to the Saudis and oversee their nuclear agenda than let China or Russia fill the void.

Good or bad, the deal matters a lot to the US president, said Sharon Squassoni in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago), so rumours of its death “are premature”. After all, it’s not some “spur-of-the-moment fantasy” cooked up by Trump. The same deal was also being considered under Joe Biden, and then too enrichment was a quid pro quo for recognising Israel.

The Saudis won’t do so, of course, given recent history, but they won’t have to. Although Congress can disapprove the deal once it’s submitted, the present Congress – due to adjourn on 18 December – is much less likely to do so than any freshly elected one. So the Saudis can “call Trump’s bluff by simply sitting back” and waiting for him to succumb to the pressure of the December deadline.

August 11, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

The Saudi Nuclear Deal Invites Disaster (Wall Street Journal)

July 26, 2026, By: Henry Sokolski, https://npolicy.org/the-saudi-nuclear-deal-invites-disaster/

Critics of the recently announced U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia let out a sigh of relief when President Trump posted on Truth Social that the deal wouldn’t go ahead until Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel and insisted that the agreement permits “no enrichment of material.” Still, there are serious problems with the agreement, not the least of which is that—despite Mr. Trump’s post—it allows for enrichment. The administration and Congress should correct that.

Uranium enrichment can make fuel for both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. That’s why for the past half-century Washington has never included nuclear fuel-making as a part of any of its civilian nuclear agreements with states that lack nuclear weapons. In recent decades, other major nuclear supplier states including France, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea have followed America’s example.

Washington should continue this policy. The Pentagon recently bombed Iran’s nuclear fuel-making plants. Providing Saudi Arabia a pathway to build the capacity the U.S. Air Force is razing in Iran gives hypocrisy a bad name. It not only would make it more difficult to get Iran to restrict its own program, but also set a poor example and encourage other nuclear suppliers to misbehave.

More important, it’s sure to spook Riyadh’s neighbors. U.S. negotiators agreed that Iran may, after a moratorium, resume enriching uranium. The U.S.-Saudi deal allows a similar privilege to Riyadh. The U.S. got the United Arab Emirates to agree to forgo making nuclear fuel with the caveat that if Washington afforded any neighbor more-generous terms, the U.A.E. could renegotiate.

Then there are Egypt and Turkey, both building large nuclear plants. U.S. diplomats asked both to forswear making nuclear fuel. Both refused. The Saudi deal, in short, could pour proliferation kerosene on these states’ smoldering nuclear ambitions.

Energy Secretary Christopher Wright insists the opposite. He says this deal will “uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation.” In fact, it represents a new low. The agreement doesn’t require Riyadh to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s model inspections under what’s known as the Additional Protocol. These inspections allow short-notice visits at any time, anywhere. One hundred forty-four states have already adopted the Additional Protocol; Saudi Arabia has refused. The fear is that it might want to hide something.

The Energy Department is quick to insist that it will “black box” any nuclear fuel-making plant in Saudi Arabia to prevent military diversions. That is magical thinking. No such box has ever been developed, nor has it been explained publicly. That’s because it doesn’t exist.

Saudi nationals couldn’t be kept clear of a large nuclear fuel-making plant in Saudi territory. At a minimum, construction and operation of such a “black box” plant would make it far more difficult to detect Saudi efforts to build a covert facility (possibly with the assistance of its nuclear-armed ally Pakistan). And black boxing can never protect against sovereign Saudi seizure of what’s in the box.

Fortunately, the reported deal contains an escape clause. It doesn’t promise the immediate transfer of uranium-enrichment technology. Rather, it pledges a two-year study into the concept. But it doesn’t take two years to figure out that this is a bad idea.

Washington shouldn’t be in the business of transferring nuclear bomb-making capability to Saudi Arabia or any other country. To make sure it doesn’t, Mr. Trump—who relishes getting the best bargain—should renegotiate the deal. Alternatively, Mr. Trump could simply decline to send this bad deal to Congress. If he sends it anyway, lawmakers need to hold hearings and legislate to condition its implementation on making it right.

To read the full piece, click here.

July 31, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

US‑Saudi nuclear deal invites proliferation risks … unless safeguards are written in

A key question remains over the landmark U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal announced
with much fanfare on July 22, 2026: Will it allow a nation long suspected
of having nuclear weapons ambitions to enrich uranium? U.S. President
Donald Trump has already shifted the sands of the agreement, adding a major
caveat requiring Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel first. He
also posted that there would be “no enrichment.” But it is unclear
whether either condition is included in the signed deal, something that has
nonproliferation experts like me worried.

 The Conversation 27th July 2026,
https://theconversation.com/us-saudi-nuclear-deal-invites-proliferation-risks-unless-safeguards-are-written-in-288291

July 31, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia stares down Trump whiplash on nuclear deal

The text of the agreement is not public, but reported details include a 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal giving American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“at this juncture,” Trump’s demand for Saudi-Israel ties looks likely to delay implementation of the deal. 

Saudi Arabia views Israel as the obstacle toward normalization, insisting on a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block.

Comments:by Laura Kelly – 07/27/26, https://thehill.com/policy/international/5992914-saudi-us-nuclear-deal-stalls/

Saudi Arabia is sending no signals it will accept President Trump’s after-the-fact condition that Riyadh establish ties with Israel as part of a nuclear energy deal with the United States. In fact, its leaders haven’t even conceded that the deal signed last week is off. 

Normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia was long a central pillar of a package deal for the U.S. to partner with the kingdom in building its civil nuclear program — negotiated during the first Trump administration and then the Biden administration.

But that demand appeared absent when Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced Wednesday that the U.S. signed a major deal with Saudi Arabia for American companies to jointly build a civil nuclear program in the oil-rich country. 

Mohammed Alhamed, a Saudi geopolitical analyst and president of the consultancy group Saudi Elite, said Trump’s demands about the Abraham Accords “do not change the substance of the agreement.”

“If Saudi recognition of Israel had been a formal condition for the nuclear deal, it would have been negotiated before the agreement was signed and explicitly included in its terms,” he said.

“I believe President Trump was primarily speaking to a domestic political audience by reassuring Israel and its supporters in Washington. That does not necessarily mean Saudi Arabia has changed its position.”

Trump on Friday pushed back on reporting that he was caught off guard by Wright solidifying the nuclear agreement.

“No, nobody got out ahead. I mean, I just say that in order to do it, they have to be a member of the Abraham Accords,” he said in the Oval Office with Wright behind him. 

“It was always understood, and Chris knew, and Saudi Arabia knew, that if they didn’t join the Abraham Accords — I’m not going to do the deal.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment on the record about the status of the nuclear deal or whether it was considering joining the 2020 deal establishing ties between Israel and Muslim-majority countries. 

Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Saudi officials are likely taking a deep breath and withholding any actions that could trigger Trump to further bear down on his demand. 

“I think if you’re the Saudis, you’re like, all right, let’s kind of see where this goes. Maybe we’ll gradually start having some conversations … Does Trump really want to kind of scuttle this big deal? Which for Trump, it’s a big deal because it’s theoretically big business for U.S. companies. So do you really want to scuttle that?” he asked.

“I think they’re just going to take a pause, take a deep breath, have some quiet conversations, and see where this lands.”

A key test for Trump is if he transmits the nuclear agreement to Congress in the coming weeks, before Republicans possibly lose majorities in the House and Senate. 

Once the agreement is transmitted to Congress, lawmakers have 90 days to either oppose the deal or allow it to proceed. If Trump delays in sending the agreement after September, he’ll almost certainly have to contend with slimmer GOP margins or Democratic majorities. 

The text of the agreement is not public, but reported details include a 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal giving American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“We’ve been pushing the U.S. government for decades to get it done,” said Christopher Guith, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute.

Guith said, “at this juncture,” Trump’s demand for Saudi-Israel ties looks likely to delay implementation of the deal. 

Daniel Shapiro, who served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East under the Biden administration, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman always viewed a partnership with the U.S. on nuclear energy as the “holy grail,” adding the Saudis are particularly focused on achieving “special exemptions” permitting possible uranium enrichment as a hedge against Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon. 

“The crown prince has always said that he would ensure Saudi Arabia matched that capability if Iran got it,” he said. 

There are different phases of the deal, including a two-year feasibility study to determine if uranium enrichment should take place in Saudi Arabia, instead of having such nuclear fuel shipped in by the United States. That provision raised flags for former diplomats and nuclear nonproliferation experts as a potential pathway for Riyadh to develop a nuclear weapon. Other reported details raised concern of lax oversight on nuclear safety and nonproliferation. 

Riyadh is unlikely to throw out the deal with the U.S. because of Trump’s demands on Israel. 

“They hope the agreement moves forward, that Trump will back down from his tweet,” Shapiro said of the president’s Truth Social post. 

While Russia and China are alternatives for civil-nuclear cooperation, Saudi Arabia is demonstrating it sees more value in a long-term partnership with the U.S. — despite Trump’s whiplash diplomacy, growing partisanship in the Congress on foreign policy and the immense fallout from the war with Iran. 

“The Saudis really want their security anchored in the United States,” said Ratney, who is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“So this is kind of a piece of that — If they’re going to develop nuclear energy, they would like it anchored in a relationship with the United States. That’s just where they’ve always been. … I don’t know that they’re going to see this as a reason to kind of brandish alternatives for their nuclear power.” 

Alhamed, the Saudi consultant, said there are clear incentives for both the Trump administration and Riyadh to see the nuclear deal put into play. 

“For the United States, the agreement strengthens a decades-long strategic partnership, supports American companies and the U.S. economy, and preserves U.S. influence,” he said. 

“For Saudi Arabia, it advances the Kingdom’s long-term energy and economic transformation while reinforcing a trusted partnership with Washington.”

But it’s not clear if Riyadh or Trump are ready to move off their stances toward the Accords. 

Saudi Arabia views Israel as the obstacle toward normalization, insisting on a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block. The long-serving Israeli leader is also heading into consequential elections on Oct. 27, where engaging on the issue of resolution with the Palestinians is radioactive for nearly all Israeli politicians. 

Israel’s brutal response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, increasing violence and deadly clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and the war in southern Lebanon have made it all but impossible for Riyadh to embrace Israel. 

“As the leading Arab and Islamic country, Saudi Arabia carries broader regional responsibilities, making normalization difficult without meaningful progress on Palestinian rights and a credible pathway to a two-state solution,” Alhamed said.

July 30, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Trump stuns Saudis by pinning nuclear deal to Israel ties

By AFPT, 24 July 2026, https://www.dailymail.com/wires/afp/article-16000561/Trump-stuns-Saudis-pinning-nuclear-deal-Israel-ties.html

President Donald Trump is making Israel a key part of the US nuclear deal with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia depends on the kingdom recognizing Israel, throwing the agreement into turmoil just the day after it was signed.

The apparently new condition comes despite Riyadh having long resisted joining the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel, insisting on a pathway to a Palestinian state.

It was not mentioned in the civilian nuclear deal announced on Wednesday, which had appeared to be a major win for the Saudis even as Trump wages war on Iran over its nuclear program.

But Trump stunned the Saudis with his post on his Truth Social network saying the deal “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”

The White House insisted that Trump had previously told Saudi Arabia the deal was contingent on recognizing Israel.

“The president is always the final dealmaker. He has said if they don’t join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“The president has spoken directly with the Saudis about this in numerous conversations in the past, and the administration will continue to engage in those conversations.”

– ‘Historic leap’ –

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recognition by Saudi Arabia, a regional power and home to Islam’s holiest sites, would mark a “historic leap” forward for peace in the Middle East.

Leavitt said she did not know of any calls between Trump and Netanyahu following the announcement of the Saudi agreement.

There was no immediate reaction from Riyadh.

Should it go through, the deal to establish a civilian nuclear program in Saudi Arabia would generate billions of dollars for American companies.

But with Trump’s latest announcement, it was unclear whether it would ever see the light of day.

If Washington “tries to force normalization on Riyadh, it’s not likely to work out very well,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a leading UK defense and security think tank.

“Would Saudi decide to do a complete 180 on what it has declared for the past three years, or 30 years? Quite dubious,” he told AFP.

Critics have also insisted that the deal could precipitate a nuclear race in a region already battered by war.

One provision would potentially see US companies build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The US Energy Department made no mention of such a provision and did not offer comment when asked about it by AFP.

And Trump seemingly quashed it by saying on Truth Social that there would be “no enrichment of material!”

The deal will be submitted to Congress for review.

US lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have previously voiced opposition to such a project over fears Saudi Arabia could eventually convert it to develop nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that any civil nuclear agreement signed by Washington with another country “is going to be one that will have safeguards in place to ensure that it can’t be turned into a weapons program.”

– Proliferation concerns –

Riyadh, like Tehran, has long been adamant about its right to pursue a civilian nuclear program. Last year it signed a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Policymakers have long feared that if Iran produced a nuclear weapon, the move would set off an arms race across the Gulf.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed concerns, insisting the deal was in Washington’s economic and strategic interest and involved the “highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation.”

The United States has agreements governing nuclear cooperation with more than 50 countries.

The Saudi deal meanwhile comes as Riyadh looks set to be dragged further into the Middle East war, with Yemen’s Houthi rebels starting to attack ships in the Red Sea to enforce what they say is a blockade on Saudi Arabia.

Trump vowed to punish both Iran and the Houthis if the attacks continue.

July 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment