A daily briefing on Trump-related issues from The Herald Business international desk.

US President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday. [Reuters]
US President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday. [Reuters]

Donald Trump said he would link a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement — known as a 123 agreement — with Saudi Arabia to the kingdom's normalization of ties with Israel. He also insisted the deal would not allow Saudi Arabia to enrich nuclear material, though US media outlets said that claim may contradict the agreement's actual terms.

Trump announced Thursday on his Truth Social platform that he would approve the 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia, saying it was "contingent entirely on Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords."

The Abraham Accords are a series of US-brokered normalization agreements signed during Trump's first term, under which the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Given that the Trump administration has been working to expand the accords to additional Middle Eastern countries, the nuclear deal's precondition amounts to a demand that Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel.

White House spokesperson Carolyn Levitt told reporters at a briefing that "this agreement with Saudi Arabia is contingent on joining the Abraham Accords," adding that Trump had said the 123 agreement would fall through if Saudi Arabia did not join.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately welcomed the announcement. "Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords would be a historic leap toward peace in the Middle East," he said.

US media outlets noted, however, that the 123 agreement — signed just a day earlier — now faces a significant complication: Saudi Arabia has long conditioned normalization with Israel on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, a demand Israel has been unwilling to accept.

Trump said the 123 agreement, signed Thursday by the energy ministers of both countries, was a "civilian nuclear agreement" and that "there will be no enrichment of material," describing it as covering only non-military uses — the same as what Iran and the UAE already have.

Trump added that "the United States has no objection to civilian, non-enrichment nuclear facilities."

US media outlets reported that the agreement could potentially allow Saudi Arabia to enrich and reprocess nuclear material on its own, opening a path to weapons-grade fissile material production, and raised concerns that a nuclear arms race in the Middle East could accelerate.

Trump sought to draw a line under those concerns by flatly declaring "there is no enrichment," but The New York Times and CNN reported that his remarks differed from what US officials had described.

The New York Times, citing anonymous US officials, reported that a key feature of the agreement is that Saudi Arabia could be permitted to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium on its own soil after the two countries conduct a joint study — over two years — on the economics of nuclear fuel production.

CNN also reported that the deal could lead to Saudi Arabia enriching its own fuel for civilian reactors, and quoted a source noting that Saudi Arabia would not be required to sign a standard additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency — unlike what the UAE agreed to when it concluded the so-called gold standard nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States in 2009.

The gold standard the UAE accepted meant forgoing the right to produce its own nuclear fuel through enrichment, reprocessing or other means. The additional protocol allows for snap inspections of all suspected sites in a country, including undeclared facilities.

The US Department of Energy announced Thursday that it had signed the 123 agreement and an accompanying safeguards agreement, saying American companies would provide broad participation in Saudi Arabia's nuclear energy program, benefiting US businesses, workers and supply chains while also contributing to Saudi Arabia's energy needs.

The department said the two agreements "comply with high standards of nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation, and will strengthen US competitiveness in civilian nuclear technology, advancing security for the United States and the region." It did not, however, disclose the specific terms of the agreements.


mokiya@heraldcorp.com