Saudi Arabia would need to normalize relations with Israel to receive the U.S. nuclear technology it has long sought, President Donald Trump said Thursday, adding a new and potentially deal-ending stipulation to an agreement signed just a day earlier.
The nuclear deal – which was fiercely opposed by Israel and others concerned about nuclear proliferation – is “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, Trump said in a social media post, referring to the effort from his first term to normalize relations between Israel and Muslim-majority countries from which it had long been estranged. The Saudis have thus far refused to join the accord.
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It was the latest whiplash-inducing policy shift from the White House, which had faced-down considerable political opposition to push forward with the Saudi deal. The Biden administration also discussed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, but tied any agreement to opening diplomatic relations with Israel, a move that has the potential to reshape dynamics in the Middle East, but which remains distant.
If the Saudis “don’t join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a few hours after Trump’s post, responding to questions from reporters.
Asked why that condition had not been included in the deal when it was announced Wednesday, Leavitt said that Trump is “always the final dealmaker.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how the Trump administration would modify a legal agreement that it has already signed with the Saudi government. Asked for details, the White House pointed to Leavitt’s comments.
The deal to allow the Saudis to build nuclear power plants using U.S. technology, creating a pathway to a Saudi nuclear enrichment program, has set off debate in Congress. Many lawmakers fear that allowing more countries to develop enrichment programs could eventually lead to more possessing nuclear weapons.
Israel hotly opposes Saudi Arabia’s developing a nuclear enrichment program, fearful it could lead to a regional arms race. Israeli leaders welcomed Trump’s new conditions.
The Saudis have long sought to build nuclear power plants on their territory – and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country, has declared that they would work to develop nuclear weapons if Iran develops its own.
The Biden administration also explored a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, but it ultimately floundered because normalizing relations with Israel was the main condition the U.S. placed on the agreement. The deal the Trump administration signed Wednesday would have imposed no such requirement.
Trump’s new condition on Thursday would attach a major string to the deal. Saudi leaders were nearing a normalization agreement with Israel in 2023, just before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 of that year. Since then, however, talks have been paused. Saudi leaders now say they would want guarantees of an eventual Palestinian state, and Saudi public opinion has soured toward Israel because of its handling of the war in Gaza. Any nuclear deal tied to Saudi-Israel diplomatic breakthroughs has seemed remote.
“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “But is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, normalized diplomatic and economic ties between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco later joined. Saudi Arabia is a heavyweight of the Middle East. Boosting ties to Israel would be a major shift in a region long beset by religious tensions.
The president’s assertion that there would be no nuclear enrichment as part of the deal appears to contradict how people familiar with the deal have described it. Most of the deal’s details remain private.
The president will need to submit the agreement to Congress, starting a 90-day clock for approval. That move could take place as early as today.
It is unlikely Congress will be able to stop the deal, even if there is substantial opposition. The president could veto their disapproval, and opponents are unlikely to have the votes to override him.
But Trump’s new condition could stymie the deal even before it gets off the ground.
Trump had not spoken to Mohammed in the hours since the social media announcement, Leavitt said. Nor did he speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she said.
It was just the latest example of the president’s on-again, off-again approach to policymaking. Last week, Trump said that the United States would impose a 20 percent toll on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, despite months in which his own administration said that doing so would be a violation of international law.
A day later, and following widespread condemnation, he abandoned the idea, saying he would make investment deals with Persian Gulf countries instead.
The agreement that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed Wednesday lays out conditions for nuclear energy cooperation and includes stipulations aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
But unlike other recent deals with countries that do not already have a domestic enrichment program, this one would not impose the same strict conditions aimed at preventing them from moving in that direction.
The initial announcement of the deal on Wednesday drew condemnation in Israel, where leaders fear a Saudi nuclear program could spur a regional arms race. Israelis worry that Turkey and others could also seek nuclear enrichment programs, ultimately leading to far more countries in the region that have a pathway to a nuclear weapon.
Israel has an undeclared nuclear weapons program, in addition to civilian nuclear power capability.
“Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said Thursday in a statement.
The Trump administration has offered little information about the agreement’s contents. Three people familiar with the details said that it is designed with safeguards to keep the Saudis from enriching nuclear fuel to weapons-grade level.
But they said it exempts the Saudis from aggressive international inspections required in nuclear reactor deals with other countries, including the United Arab Emirates. Instead, sensitive inspections would be executed by American teams under terms spelled out in the agreement, which was initially worked out when the crown prince visited Washington in November.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agreement publicly.
“These agreements reflect our two nations’ shared commitment to strengthening U.S.-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a Wednesday statement.
Trump had to sign a separate national security waiver to allow the deal to move forward, since it does not include conventional international inspections, according to the people familiar with the deal.
Under the Saudi deal, the two countries agree to study for two years whether enrichment on Saudi soil is feasible and necessary.
Proponents say the deal with the Saudis gives the U.S. an opportunity to control the expansion of the enrichment network on its own terms and limit the risk of nuclear proliferation. The deal requires that any enrichment on Saudi soil would be controlled by U.S. companies using technology that is not shared with the Saudis, in an effort to limit the possibility that Saudi Arabia could use the program to develop a nuclear weapon.
Nonproliferation experts have long warned against such a deal, saying that safeguards are unlikely to hold for the long term.
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