Trump Approves US-Saudi Nuclear Deal Letting Riyadh Enrich Uranium
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- Trump approved a 30-year US-Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement worth tens of billions of dollars under the Atomic Energy Act's '123 Agreement', permitting Saudi Arabia to domestically enrich uranium — a capability that can produce both reactor fuel and fissile material for weapons.
- The deal omits the 'Gold Standard' non-proliferation commitments that originated with the 2009 US-UAE agreement and does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol for enhanced inspections, with safeguards instead to be negotiated bilaterally between Washington and Riyadh.
- Israeli officials including Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, former defense minister Avigdor Liberman and former PM Ehud Barak publicly warned the civilian programme could be diverted toward military purposes, with defense expert Sandeep Unnithan calling it a 'double dilemma' for Jerusalem since Saudi nukes could reach Israel even if aimed at Iran.
- Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual defence treaty in 2025 reportedly placing Riyadh under Islamabad's nuclear umbrella, reviving speculation that Pakistan — whose bomb programme received covert Saudi funding during the Zia-ul-Haq era — could supply warheads if Saudi Arabia chose to pursue them.
- Defense expert Sandeep Unnithan told India Today Digital that a 1980s covert understanding gave Saudi Arabia access to roughly six to eight Pakistani warheads in a regional crisis, while Saudi Arabia's mid-1980s purchase of around two dozen Chinese DF-3 missiles — widely viewed as intended nuclear delivery systems — triggered a US diplomatic crisis before Riyadh pledged not to arm them and acceded to the NPT in 1988.
- The Trump administration has delinked the nuclear agreement from Saudi-Israeli normalization, unlike the Biden administration which had sought to tie civil nuclear cooperation to a wider regional pact, leaving the deal's Congressional approval path and Israel's concerns unresolved.
Why it matters: By approving domestic Saudi enrichment without the Gold Standard or mandatory IAEA Additional Protocol, Washington has given Riyadh a latent pathway to a nuclear weapon — and Pakistan's reported nuclear umbrella over Saudi Arabia, codified in a 2025 mutual defence treaty, means any Saudi bomb bid could draw on Islamabad's proven warhead and delivery expertise accumulated since the 1980s.
