Why Trump may be undermining his own Saudi nuclear deal - vox.com

What the report says

Vox reports that the Trump administration’s newly signed civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia has quickly become uncertain after President Donald Trump appeared to add conditions that were not reflected in earlier accounts of the deal. The 30-year, multibillion-dollar agreement was signed Wednesday by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart, but its full terms have not been made public.

According to Vox, reporting by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times indicated the arrangement could include US help not only for Saudi nuclear power reactors, but potentially for facilities connected to uranium enrichment. That possibility has alarmed nonproliferation specialists because US nuclear cooperation agreements have historically restricted partners from producing their own nuclear fuel. Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council told Vox such assistance would be without precedent in US nuclear policy.

Trump later wrote on Truth Social that the deal would include “no enrichment of material” and would depend on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, the normalization framework between Israel and several Muslim-majority countries. Vox notes that this condition had not appeared in earlier media accounts based on US officials’ statements. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the agreement would be off unless Saudi Arabia joined the accords, while the Saudi government had not responded to Trump’s statement at the time of Vox’s report.

The issue matters because Saudi Arabia has previously resisted some stricter safeguards used in other US nuclear deals and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said the kingdom would seek a nuclear weapon if Iran obtained one. Vox frames the dispute as part of a broader concern that loosening limits on enrichment could increase pressure for nuclear hedging in the Middle East and beyond.