All art, no deal: On the U.S.-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal

The announcement of a United States-Saudi Arabia civil nuclear deal, in the midst of a U.S.-Iran war that began over Tehran’s nuclear programme, could hardly have come at a worse time. Matters became more complicated when U.S. President Donald Trump, after the agreement had been signed, added a new condition: that Saudi Arabia should join the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia has long sought to develop a civilian nuclear programme. Crown Prime Mohammad bin Salman, or MBS, wants to end the kingdom’s “addiction” to oil. His Vision 2030 aims to diversify the economy through finance, megaprojects, tourism and power-hungry artificial intelligence (AI) data centres. The kingdom currently relies heavily on oil and gas for electricity generation. Saudi officials believe that nuclear power would help meet rising domestic energy demand, while freeing more oil and gas for export. MBS first took up his nuclear ambitions with Mr. Trump during the latter’s first presidential term. His successor Joe Biden offered a deal but made it contingent on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords. At that time, Saudi Arabia appeared open to normalising ties with Israel, but Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza prompted the Saudis to shelve the idea. The July 22 deal suggested that Riyadh and Washington continued talks and remained keen on nuclear cooperation.

As a signatory to the NPT, Saudi Arabia has every right to pursue a peaceful nuclear programme. But the agreement announced by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright leaves open the possibility of nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil. This flies in the face of the U.S. opposition to any Iranian enrichment on its soil. The agreement, according to U.S. media reports, does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which grants inspectors broad powers to conduct short-notice inspections. The omission has fuelled concerns that the kingdom could eventually acquire the technical capability to weaponise its nuclear programme. Facing domestic criticism, Mr. Trump declared that the deal would proceed only if Saudi Arabia joined the Abraham Accords — a condition which was conspicuously absent when the agreement was signed. This apparent reversal is unlikely to reassure Riyadh, which is already questioning the reliability of U.S. security guarantees. If the deal eventually goes ahead, Tehran is likely to harden its position on enrichment in any future nuclear talks with the U.S. If Mr. Trump’s objective was to reassure a long-standing ally while signalling strategic leverage over a regional rival, the execution of the deal has had the opposite effect. Ill-timed diplomacy, ambiguous provisions and shifting conditions have deepened Saudi concerns and strengthened Iran’s resolve. That is the result of Mr. Trump’s version of the “art of the deal”.