S President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Washington’s proposed civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia would only be approved if Riyadh joins the Abraham Accords and normalises relations with Israel.
The United States and Saudi Arabia announced the nuclear cooperation agreement on Wednesday. The proposed deal would allow the kingdom to develop nuclear reactors using American technology, although it must still receive approval from the US Congress before taking effect.
Trump stressed that the agreement would not permit uranium enrichment.
“The civil nuclear deal — there will be no enrichment of material — pertains only to non-military use,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that its approval was “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords.
“The United States is not opposed to civil, non-enriched nuclear facilities,” he said.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment on Trump’s remarks.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it will not establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel without a credible and irreversible pathway towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords during Trump’s first presidential term in 2020, becoming the first Arab countries in decades to formally recognise Israel. Morocco and Sudan later joined the normalisation initiative.
The Trump administration said the proposed nuclear agreement complies with the non-proliferation requirements of the US Atomic Energy Act.
Saudi officials said the deal would support the kingdom’s efforts to diversify its energy resources and would adhere to the highest international standards of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation.
However, nuclear cooperation with Riyadh has long raised concerns in Washington because uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel can provide pathways towards producing weapons-grade material.
The UAE agreed to permanently renounce enrichment and reprocessing when it signed its own civil nuclear agreement with the United States in 2009.
