Trump’s Nuclear Deal With Saudi Arabia Looks More Like a Favor

The Trump administration is expected on Wednesday to sign
a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that, per The New York Times, “could
lead to the country enriching its own fuel for nuclear reactors” and is
estimated to “provide billions of dollars for the U.S. nuclear industry.” This
news took much of Washington by surprise, given the rift between the two
countries over the U.S. war against Iran. Nuclear experts have long been
expecting such a deal, but President Trump’s reported concessions to Saudi
Arabia raise legitimate concerns and unless addressed could lead to a Middle
East filled with nuclear weapons programs. This would undermine decades of U.S.
work to prevent the spread of the most destructive weapons humanity has ever
created.

For the U.S. to sell enriched uranium or nuclear power
plants abroad, it must first reach an agreement with the country under article
123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The U.S. has 26 of these so-called
123 agreements with 51 governments, including Russia, China, India, Japan,
South Korea, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates. Most of these were
negotiated so the U.S. could sell both reactors and low-enriched uranium fuel that
cannot be used in nuclear weapons. Almost all of the deals omit permission for states
to pursue uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing—thus reducing global risk,
as highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium can both be used to produce
nuclear weapons. Japan and the European Union, with their strong legal systems and
acceptance of the most stringent inspection obligations conducted by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, are the only two 123 deals that allow significant enrichment or reprocessing of U.S. materials.

Saudi Arabia is not Japan or the EU, and its agreement with
the U.S. sounds a lot different from the standard 123 deal. This raises
concerns that Saudi Arabia is using its close financial ties to the Trump
family to manipulate U.S. cooperation to pursue a nuclear weapon option,
especially if Iran continues to be a nuclear threshold state.

Of greatest concern is a provision that could open the door
to Saudi Arabia having a uranium enrichment facility. The pact reportedly agrees
that the two countries will conduct a two-year fuel-cycle study on the economic
feasibility of domestic enrichment in Saudi Arabia. If the two sides agree that
it’s feasible, then the U.S. would build an enrichment facility there without
giving Saudi Arabian citizens access to the sensitive technology—a so-called
black box approach. If the two sides do not agree enrichment makes sense, then
Saudi Arabia would not be allowed to build its own domestic enrichment for 10
years. What happens after that is not clear. The fact that the two-year window
would fall within the time remaining in Trump’s term is a sign that the fix for
Saudi Arabia might be in and approval of enrichment a foregone conclusion.

Another worrying provision in the deal “may limit
international inspectors from going to any sites in the country that they think
could be a pathway to diverting fuel to weapons projects,” the Times
reported. 

That the U.S. negotiated a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is
not itself a shocking development. The Biden administration held preliminary
discussions with Riyadh about a 123 agreement, but with a set of very stringent
provisions that are not included in the new deal. The Biden administration’s
goal was threefold: Improve regional security by facilitating Israeli-Saudi
reconciliation, keep China from becoming a major provider of nuclear technology
to Saudi Arabia and the region, and boost the prospects for U.S. nuclear
commercial sales while enhancing nonproliferation goals and standards.

The Biden deal would have required that Saudi Arabia establish
full diplomatic relations with Israel, and that Israel agree to make progress
on the treatment of Palestinians and on the status of the Occupied Territories in
West Bank and Gaza. The Biden concept would also have required Saudi Arabia to
agree to only pursue nuclear cooperation with the U.S., cutting out China,
Russia, and other states. This clause was driven largely by concern that
Beijing or Moscow might not be as careful as the U.S. about sharing sensitive
nuclear technology; if the U.S. were the main provider in Saudi Arabia, it could
maintain greater control over any nuclear activities the country might want to
pursue. (There are reports of an exclusivity clause in a secret side letter to
the Trump deal, but that has not been made public.)

Lastly, the Biden deal would have required that Riyadh
accept the highest possible standards for nuclear transparency and inspections
by the IAEA, including the Additional Protocol
accepted by Japan, the EU, the UAE, and even Iran under the terms of the 2015
nuclear deal. If those goals were met, then the Biden administration was
willing to consider an option for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to jointly own a
uranium enrichment facility under a black box arrangement—with the facility being
either in Saudi Arabia or in the United States with Saudi financing.

Even these conditions raised serious concerns among U.S.
nuclear experts. But it was for naught: Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel
derailed the discussions.

Now Trump is on the verge of striking a notably looser,
less restrictive deal with Saudi Arabia. There are good reasons to be concerned
that the administration has neither the motivation nor the expertise to ensure
that any complex nuclear negotiation advances U.S. interests in preventing the
spread of nuclear weapons. The mishandling of nuclear negotiations by the first
and second Trump administrations are well
documented, including the decision to blow up the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal struck
by President Obama and the loose wording of last month’s memorandum
of understanding between the U.S. and Iran.

Any deal that gives sensitive nuclear technology to a
country whose leader
has openly stated he would develop a nuclear weapon if Iran did so should raise
major concerns—and draw scrutiny by Congress. Under the Atomic Energy Act,
nuclear cooperation agreements must be submitted to lawmakers, who then have 90 days
of “continuous
session” to decide whether to reject it. If Congress takes no action, then the agreement would go into force and could be ratified by the executive
branch. There are not enough in-session days in the current Congress for this
deal to be reviewed, which means the next Congress after the midterms will have
to consider this deal. There are a number of questions that need to be
answered:

What conditions would be imposed on any future U.S.-Saudi
enrichment facility, and what happens if Saudi Arabia violates its nuclear
nonproliferation obligations?

Can Saudi Arabia pursue enrichment or
reprocessing if the fuel-cycle study is inconclusive or determines domestic
fuel-cycle activities are not economically justified?

Can Saudi Arabia acquire nuclear or other
sensitive technology from China or other states?

Does pursuing this deal reduce or eliminate
America’s ability to encourage future diplomatic engagement between Israel and
Saudi Arabia?

In the end, the Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Congress
is all but certain to let the proposed agreement enter into force. However, it
will take many months for that to happen and many more for any nuclear
contracts and deals to be put into place. But now is the time for vigilance. These
next few months, between the U.S.-Saudi deal and the Iran war (the country’s 400
kilograms of highly enriched uranium are still unaccounted for), may well determine
whether the nearly 80-year effort to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading to
dozens more countries succeeds or fails. ...