Self-styled “Dealmaker-in-Chief” Donald Trump plans to enter a pact with Saudi Arabia that could allow the repressive kingdom to develop nuclear weapons.
Trump, 80, intends to announce and sign the deal to boost the country’s nascent nuclear program—with no concessions to the U.S.—on Wednesday.
Such an agreement has been under discussion for years, but the idea had always been to force Saudi Arabia’s hand in return.
The Biden administration used earlier talks to push the Saudis toward normalizing ties with Israel. Those efforts ran into a wall with the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, and the terms of Trump’s deal make no mention of diplomatic recognition.
Trump’s involvement in the subsequent war with Iran soured U.S.-Saudi relations, and the president is now offering this no-strings nuclear handout as a way to make amends, the New York Times reports.
Prince Mohamed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s 40-year-old de facto ruler, has clashed with Trump over regional instability and oil market chaos caused by the conflict, blocking use of the country’s airspace for U.S. military operations against Tehran.
Trump has agreed to allow Saudi Arabia to enrich its own nuclear fuel, and to limit international inspection of any nuclear sites that the country could potentially use to develop its own weapons. The president launched his war with Iran on Feb. 28 with the express intention of preventing nuclear proliferation in the region, claiming Tehran was within weeks of building a bomb.
Prince Mohammed has been clear in the past that Saudi Arabia considers developing nuclear weapons a live option. He has said the country would build a bomb “without a doubt” if Iran ever obtained nuclear strike capabilities. The White House has yet to secure a lasting resolution to its conflict with Tehran, let alone a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with the regime after Trump withdrew in 2018 from an Obama-era deal to that effect.
The New York Times notes that the president’s deal with Saudi Arabia represents a stark departure from the U.S. agreement with the United Arab Emirates, signed in 2009 and widely considered the “gold standard for nuclear nonproliferation.” That deal notably required the UAE to forgo any right to enrich its own uranium.
Trump’s pact with Saudi Arabia has sparked immediate backlash. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 58, a staunch critic of the president, wrote on X that there’s “NOTHING TO SEE HERE, FOLKS, VERY NORMAL!” His post included a screenshot of a news article from September, with a headline that reads: “Trump Organization seals $1B deal to build ‘Central Park-inspired’ complex in Saudi city of Jeddah.”
The first family has faced widespread criticism over alleged conflicts of interest throughout Trump’s second term. In particular, the deals struck in Saudi Arabia by his son, Eric Trump, 42, which have seen Dar Global, a firm with ties to the royal family, pump more than $20 million into the Trump Organization over the past year in licensing fees alone for two Trump towers in the country.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
