President Donald Trump on Thursday attached a sweeping new condition to a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, declaring that the landmark deal his own administration finalized just one day earlier “will be approved” only if Riyadh joins the Abraham Accords and normalizes relations with Israel. The announcement, delivered in a Truth Social post at 6:52 a.m. Thursday, injected fresh uncertainty into an agreement that had been billed as a breakthrough for American nuclear industry access to the kingdom’s growing energy market.
“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote. “The United States is not opposed to Civil (Non-Enriched) Nuclear Facilities. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
A Deal Signed Wednesday, Redefined Thursday
The condition arrived just a day after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed the underlying agreement, which allows Riyadh to build nuclear reactors using American technology and, according to multiple U.S. media reports, potentially enrich uranium domestically rather than import fuel from abroad. The administration has said the pact complies with the nonproliferation standards set out in the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, among the strictest in the world, and does not permit Saudi Arabia to reprocess American nuclear material for weapons purposes.
Trump’s Thursday post appeared to contradict elements of that earlier reporting, flatly stating “there will be no enrichment of material” even as the deal’s specific terms on enrichment had not been fully released. Al Jazeera noted that the statement “cast further confusion over an already opaque deal,” since uranium enrichment is not itself barred under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which both Washington and Riyadh are signatories, and it remained unclear whether Trump was referring to enrichment generally or specifically to the weapons-grade material used in warheads.
The Enrichment Question
The distinction carries real technical weight. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to roughly 90 percent, while fuel used in civilian reactors typically requires enrichment of up to 6 percent. When the United Arab Emirates signed a similar civil nuclear agreement with Washington in 2009, it agreed to forgo both enrichment and reprocessing entirely — a so-called “123 Agreement” gold standard that nonproliferation advocates have long pushed Washington to require of new nuclear partners. Whether Saudi Arabia will be held to that same standard, or granted broader latitude to enrich its own fuel, remains one of the central unresolved questions surrounding the pact.
White House Doubles Down
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reinforced Trump’s position hours after the post, telling reporters that the president “is always the final dealmaker” and that the agreement is “off” unless Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel. She said Trump had raised the Abraham Accords condition with Gulf and Arab allies “many times” in prior conversations, though she said she did not believe he had spoken directly with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since publishing the post.
“This deal with Saudi Arabia, the energy deal, is contingent on this condition, as far as the president is concerned,” Leavitt said. “We’ll continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalized and hopefully see them joining Abraham Accords very soon.”
Israel Welcomes the Condition
The reaction from Jerusalem was immediate and favorable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East. Peace through Strength.” Israeli officials had expressed concern in the run-up to the deal that expanded Saudi nuclear capability, absent a broader diplomatic framework, could stoke a regional arms race. Leavitt said she was not aware of any direct request from Netanyahu to attach the Abraham Accords condition to the nuclear agreement, telling reporters, “Not to my knowledge, no.”
Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat struck a more measured tone in radio remarks Wednesday, ahead of Trump’s post, saying that if the Saudi program were intended “for peaceful purposes, for energy needs, we can manage it, and we can also reach a peace agreement with them, God willing.”
Riyadh’s Long-Standing Resistance
Saudi Arabia has for years resisted joining the Abraham Accords absent a credible pathway toward Palestinian statehood, a position the kingdom has not signaled any intention of abandoning. The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s post. Before the Abraham Accords condition was attached, Saudi officials had described the nuclear cooperation agreement as supporting efforts to diversify the kingdom’s energy sources and said it reflected the “highest international standards” of nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation.
The Abraham Accords, Five Years Later
The Abraham Accords were brokered during Trump’s first term in 2020, when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain broke a longstanding regional taboo to become the first Arab states in a quarter century to formally recognize Israel. Morocco and Sudan later joined the framework. Saudi Arabia’s accession has long been viewed as the ultimate prize of the accords, given the kingdom’s size, oil wealth and standing as custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites — but it has also remained the most elusive, repeatedly snarled by the unresolved question of Palestinian statehood.
Trump has pushed publicly for Riyadh’s inclusion before. Speaking to the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh in May 2025, he called for building on the accords’ progress by bringing in additional countries, while separately pressing Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
What Happens Next in Congress
Under the terms disclosed so far, the U.S. Congress will have 90 session days to review the nuclear cooperation agreement before it can take effect, alongside a two-year feasibility study covering the enrichment provisions of the deal. That review window gives lawmakers — and outside nonproliferation experts — an extended opportunity to scrutinize a pact whose enrichment terms Trump himself appeared to redefine within 24 hours of it being signed.
IAEA Awaits Formal Request
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said Thursday it was still waiting on a formal request from Washington and Riyadh to implement verification measures under the agreement before it would seek authorization from its board of governors. Any enrichment activity inside Saudi Arabia would likely draw close IAEA scrutiny, given the agency’s existing safeguards framework for Iran and other regional nuclear programs.
A Deal Now Hanging on Diplomacy, Not Just Engineering
Taken together, Thursday’s post transformed what had been presented as a finalized energy and technology agreement into a piece of active leverage in the broader campaign to expand the Abraham Accords across the Middle East. For a kingdom that has resisted normalization with Israel for years over the Palestinian question, the message from Washington was unambiguous: American nuclear technology and Saudi diplomatic recognition of Israel are now, in Trump’s framing, inseparable.
Whether that ultimatum accelerates Saudi Arabia’s path into the Abraham Accords or instead stalls a nuclear agreement both governments spent months negotiating remains to be seen. For now, the deal signed Wednesday sits in a kind of suspended state — legally inked, but according to the president and his press secretary, not truly in force until Riyadh makes a diplomatic commitment it has so far declined to make.