Saudi Arabia faces U.S. nuclear deal condition: recognize Israel or lose atomic energy pac

Millions of people across the Middle East and beyond now face a more uncertain nuclear landscape after President Trump announced Thursday that the United States will approve a nuclear energy agreement with Saudi Arabia only if the kingdom agrees to normalize relations with Israel. The condition arrived a day after the Trump administration had signed the accord without publicly stating any such requirement, creating immediate confusion about what the deal actually means and raising hard questions about how ordinary citizens and governments can rely on U.S. diplomatic commitments.

Trump posted on Truth Social that the agreement “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” referring to the U.S.-brokered framework that began in his first term in 2020 and normalized relations between Israel and countries including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

The condition presents a substantial obstacle for any path forward. Saudi Arabia has long insisted it will not normalize relations with Israel until there is a clear pathway to establish a Palestinian state, a position the Israeli government strongly opposes. That standoff has direct consequences for regional stability and for the populations living under its shadow.

Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, put the public confusion plainly. “Does a social post supersede a signed diplomatic agreement? I think this is one of the frustrations that other countries have had with the United States,” Cook said. “No one in Washington really knows how it’s going to work.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump did not consult with Saudi leadership before posting the condition online, though she said he has previously discussed the importance of joining the Abraham Accords with Gulf and Arab allies. The administration, she added, will continue talks with Saudi counterparts “to get the deal finalized and hopefully see them join the Abraham Accords very soon.”

The nuclear cooperation agreement itself was signed Wednesday by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. Under the accord, U.S. companies would gain priority access to supply nuclear reactors and fuel for Saudi Arabia’s nuclear energy program. The administration must submit the deal to Congress, which has 90 days to review it. Congress could object, but would need a two-thirds majority to override a likely presidential veto, meaning public accountability for the agreement’s terms rests on a high threshold.

Saudi Arabia’s interest in nuclear energy is rooted in a practical domestic need. The kingdom is one of the world’s largest oil producers but seeks to pivot toward alternative fuel sources. Daniel Benaim, a former State Department official who worked on Gulf issues, explained the rationale to NPR. “They want to build huge energy-intensive industries, data centers, desalination. And they’re actually burning their own crude oil up to 1.4 million barrels a day at the height of the summer to do that,” Benaim said. “They want to use their crude oil for exports to make revenue and then find other energy sources to fuel their own economic transformation domestically.”

That civilian rationale, however, does not erase the proliferation risks that experts say the public has a direct stake in understanding. Matthew Bunn, a nuclear proliferation expert at Harvard University, warned that the agreement could lay groundwork for future weapons development. “They also want to provide the foundation, over time, for having more options to move toward nuclear weapons, should they feel the need,” Bunn said. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has stated the kingdom does not want a nuclear weapon, but has also said it will pursue one if Iran develops nuclear weapons.

A particularly contested element concerns uranium enrichment. Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, expressed alarm that Saudi Arabia appears permitted to enrich nuclear fuel within the country. “Saudi insistence on enrichment in Saudi Arabia … was the thing that got [previous] negotiations stuck and U.S. administrations, one after another, did not permit enrichment,” Guzansky said.

Trump stated in his Truth Social post that “There will be no enrichment of material!” Yet the actual agreement does not forbid Saudi Arabia from using American technology to enrich uranium or other nuclear fuel provided by third countries, according to a Trump administration memo reviewed by NPR. The deal also does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the “gold standard” provisions mandating greater International Atomic Energy Agency oversight, standards the Obama administration required when the United Arab Emirates signed a nuclear energy agreement with the U.S. in 2009. The gap between the president’s public statement and the agreement’s written terms is a gap citizens and lawmakers are now left to reconcile.

Israeli political figures have expressed deep concern about what the deal means for regional safety. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s former defense and foreign minister, warned the agreement risks pulling the entire Middle East into an escalating nuclear arms race. Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, suggested the deal signals a “loss of trust between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump.” Opposition leader Yair Lapid called it “a total failure of Netanyahu’s,” saying preventing a Saudi nuclear program was his responsibility. Netanyahu, who faces elections in October, has not commented publicly on the agreement.

Meanwhile, the deal’s origins carry their own contradictions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when serving as a senator, co-sponsored a bipartisan 2019 bill that would have prohibited such cooperation unless Saudi Arabia were “truthful and transparent” about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and committed to the gold standard enrichment ban. Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who co-sponsored that bill with Rubio, issued a sharp statement. “Trump’s and Secretary Rubio’s hypocrisy is matched only by their recklessness. They are allowing Saudi Arabia, a belligerent and authoritarian nation, to develop nuclear weapons technologies while starting a war with Iran under the guise of preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb,” Markey wrote. Rubio, speaking to reporters in Manila on Thursday, said the Saudi deal includes safeguards and that the U.S. aims to partner with countries developing civil, peaceful nuclear energy.

Whether Congress, with its 90-day review window, will press for stronger nonproliferation guarantees before the deal advances remains the open question that most directly shapes what kind of nuclear neighborhood the region’s citizens will inhabit for decades to come.