Saudi nuclear deal: What US policy shift means for Mideast diplomacy
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 64/100
| Mark Schiefelbein/AP/File U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman outside the White House, Nov. 18, 2025. Loading...
July 22, 2026, 5:10 p.m. ET | Amman, Jordan
The Trump administration’s announcement of a civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, while years in the making, nevertheless marks a dramatic change in decades of cautious U.S. Middle East policy.
More than a business and tech arrangement benefiting the Saudi economy, the proposed agreement is a shift in Washington’s efforts to avoid a nuclear arms race in a troubled region. It might also mark the end of a six-year effort to persuade Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel.
Under the 30-year deal, announced on Wednesday, American companies would share peaceful civil nuclear energy technology with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has long pushed for a nuclear program to support economic growth. The United States, which has sought to avoid a Mideast nuclear arms race, previously had imposed strict restrictions on sharing nuclear technology in the region.
According to details of the deal leaked to The Wall Street Journal and cited by state-run Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya, the U.S. companies would be given a “central role” in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure, including a uranium enrichment facility.
The Trump administration plans to submit the pact to Congress within “days,” Reuters reported . U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he had signed the deal Wednesday afternoon with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, has long pushed for a nuclear program to diversify its energy sources at home and free up oil to sell abroad.
Riyadh needs this cheaper domestic energy and increased oil sales to fund its economic transformation at home, in which it is trying to triple the size of its non-oil private sector and create more than 2 million jobs for Saudis.
Saudi officials have also said that nuclear energy would be key to powering water desalination – the parched kingdom desalinates 70% of its potable water – and to reaching its net-zero carbon goal by 2060.
The United States reportedly will allow Saudi Arabia access to American nuclear technologies without stringent monitoring and safety measures. Controversially, the deal also allows Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its own soil with U.S. participation.
The kingdom has long insisted on the right to enrich, saying it has deposits of uranium in the center of the country. The ability to produce its own nuclear fuel, so the thinking goes, would guarantee domestic energy independence in a post-oil era.
In Washington’s last nuclear cooperation agreement with a Middle Eastern nation, in 2009, the U.S. imposed strict regulations on the United Arab Emirates: a ban on domestic enrichment or processing, and unannounced monitoring from International Atomic Energy Agency officials, a so-called “additional protocol.”
American policymakers hailed the UAE accord as a “gold standard” that Washington has consistently said it would pursue in future nuclear cooperation deals.
Alexander Vilf / Sputnik/AP/File Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi energy minister, attends the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia, June 19, 2025. Without such additional safeguards, nonproliferation experts warn, and in light of Saudi Arabia’s defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan, the proposed deal might accelerate Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, sparking a regional arms race.
Over the past 15 years, senior Saudi leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have repeatedly warned that should Tehran successfully develop a nuclear weapon, Riyadh reserves the right to do the same.
Iran war tensions, including over Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its threat to close off Saudi oil exports on its western coast in the Red Sea, add to the arms race fears.
The deal also marks a shift in U.S. promotion of the Abraham Accords.
From 2016 to 2024, the Trump and Biden administrations had made encouraging normalized ties between Israel and Arab states a top priority in the Middle East, despite the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Normalization with Saudi Arabia, viewed by many as a leader of the Muslim world, was seen by both Israeli and U.S. officials as the big prize.
Both administrations dangled a nuclear cooperation agreement as a key incentive to Saudi Arabia in return for normalizing ties with Israel. But Saudi officials also insisted on firm, irreversible steps by Israel toward a Palestinian state to conclude a normalization pact, which the hard-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed.
Nevertheless, a deal was increasingly seen within reach before talk of a potential diplomatic breakthrough was halted by the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and Israel’s brutal offensive in Gaza.
Ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel soured further this past February after Israel helped push the Trump administration into war with Iran, a conflict which Saudi officials warned against, multiple Gulf and U.S. officials have confirmed to the Monitor.
Now, Saudi Arabia appears to have secured its prized nuclear agreement with the U.S. without the need to formalize ties with an Israel it sees as increasingly unreliable.
In interviews, Saudi officials have recently referred to the Netanyahu-led government as “extreme” and “not ready for peace.”
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