An agreement, then an extension: What the US-Saudi Arabia civilian nuclear deal really includes, and why it can’t survive

However, less than 24 hours later, US President Donald Trump added a condition As for the agreement: He said it would only take effect if Saudi Arabia rejoins the Abraham Accords and normalizes relations with Israel.

In the same Truth Social post, Trump also said that “there will be no enrichment of the material” – a statement whose scope was unclear, as it did not specify whether he meant weapons-grade enrichment or ruled it out entirely.

White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt told reporters that if the state did not join the agreement, “the deal would be void”. Saudi Arabia, which does not recognize Israel given Tel Aviv’s military operations in Palestine, has not commented publicly on Trump’s position.

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The deal runs for about 30 years and is worth tens of billions of dollars, Reuters reported, citing the terms. This allows Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel – both potential pathways to weapons-grade material. The concession is huge, especially because the neighboring United Arab Emirates (UAE) left both out when it signed a similar agreement with Washington in 2009.

The deal does not require Saudi Arabia to sign the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol, which allows expedited inspections at undeclared sites – which is different from what Washington demanded of Iran.

A two-year feasibility study will be conducted before any enrichment facility is built. The reactors built under the agreement will likely be American firm Westinghouse’s AP1000 model.

Congress has 90 session days to review the deal, which requires a two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto.

Wright said in a statement that the agreement would “maintain the highest standards of nuclear security and nonproliferation, relying on the world’s best nuclear technology and scientists”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Manila that any deal would have “safeguards to ensure that it does not turn into a weapons program”.

The Wall Street Journal reported that one provision would potentially allow US companies to build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia; However, the Energy Department made no mention of such a provision in its public statement. AFP reported that the department did not respond to questions when asked about this.

The IAEA, which would need to authorize verification measures, said it was waiting for formal requests from Washington and Riyadh, Reuters reported.

The enrichment situation is further worsened by Trump’s Truth Social post stating, “The civilian nuclear agreement (there will be no enrichment of material!) … concerns only non-military uses such as Iran and the UAE (and others) already have.”

Reuters noted that it was unclear whether Trump was referring specifically to weapons-grade enrichment – ​​reactor fuel is typically enriched to 6% uranium-235, while weapons-grade material is about 90% – or rejecting enrichment altogether.

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Levitt said Trump had discussed abraham accords previously with the Saudi leadership, but since the post he was not aware of any conversation between the president and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Asked whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had requested the condition be attached, he told reporters: “Not to my knowledge, no.”

Netanyahu’s office welcomed the move, saying in a statement that “Saudi Arabia’s joining the Abraham Accords would be a historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.”

Saudi Arabia has refused to recognize Israel without progress toward a Palestinian state, which Israel’s current government rejects.

HA Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told AFP that if Washington “tries to normalize (relations with Israel) on Riyadh, it is unlikely to work very well”.

“Will the Saudis decide to do a complete 180 on what they have announced over the last three years or 30 years? Quite doubtful,” Hellyer said.

Jennifer T. Gordon, director of the Atlantic Council’s nuclear energy policy initiative, told AFP the deal was “a victory for the United States over Russia and China.” Gordon argued that Riyadh would develop a nuclear program under any circumstances and the only real question was who would supply it.

Saudi security analyst Hesham Alghannam told AFP the deal was “a historic achievement in any sense” for Riyadh.

He said, “The alternative was not a Saudi Arabia without nuclear ambitions, it was a Saudi nuclear program based on Russian or Chinese supply chains, with no US visibility, no commercial base for Westinghouse and no structural advantage.”

Paul Dickman, chair of the American Nuclear Society’s foreign affairs committee, told AFP he was confident the deal would not create “additional proliferation challenges”, stressing the need for transparency in the final text.

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Alexander Bolfras of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London told the AP that “the revolutionary aspect of this agreement is that the United States is not asking Saudi Arabia to adhere to the highest possible safeguards, internationally monitored safeguards that are standard and available today, but at least in theory to be willing to transfer highly sensitive technology without the same level of oversight that one might expect.”

Henry Sokolsky, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told Bloomberg that the administration is “pursuing magical thinking” that safeguards will prevent Saudi arms enrichment. “In reality, no protection exists,” he said.

In Congress, the opposition moved beyond party lines. Democratic Senator Edward Markey said the deal would allow “a belligerent and authoritarian nation” to develop nuclear weapons technology under the guise of a war being waged over Iran’s program.

“This deal will make us all less safe,” he said.

Senator Bernie Sanders called the arrangement “absurd” in a post on Twitter, and wrote that Trump “claims his war on Iran is about stopping an authoritarian country from enriching nuclear fuel. Now he’s letting his best friends in Saudi Arabia do the same…exactly that”.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said on Twitter that the agreement would “start a nuclear race in the region, and discourage Iran from limiting its program”.

According to the AP, Representative Brad Sherman said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that “the only difference I see here is that Westinghouse is going to make a lot of money on this deal, whereas the Iranians were not enriching American companies”.

In a Bloomberg Opinion column, Mark Champion argued that strategic benefits do not pass either of the two tests he said should apply to any nuclear deal in the region: reassuring neighbors that it is not a weapons program, and remaining defensible if Riyadh’s leadership were to change.

Citing John Calabrese of the Middle East Institute in Washington, Champion wrote that the question was “whether the benefits of a US-led agreement – ​​greater transparency, safeguards, and influence – outweigh the risks of encouraging regional nuclear competition”, and concluded, “They do not”.

Gregory Brough, senior analyst at Eurasia Group, told AFP that Washington granting Saudi Arabia enrichment rights had a huge impact on the region and especially on Iran, which has argued for decades that it reserves the right to enrichment under its non-proliferation treaty obligations.

UAE is the second flashpoint. Its 2009 agreement with Washington prohibits domestic enrichment, but the agreement allows Abu Dhabi to seek amendments if Washington gives another regional country a better deal.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Tel Aviv’s 103 FM radio that Israel’s focus would be on enrichment: “Will it happen? Under what conditions will it happen? Who will monitor it?”

Allison Miner, director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration, told AFP that “by leaving the door open to uranium enrichment inside Saudi Arabia, the nuclear deal sends a powerful message to Tehran”, and that the announcement should be read as part of “Riyadh’s broader strategy to deal with the shock of the Iran war”.