Trump moves forward with Saudi nuclear deal, without Israel

Welcome back. New details surrounding a US-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement are triggering intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill. According to the Wall Street Journal, a newly released text shared with lawmakers outlines a potential roadmap that could eventually allow enrichment on Saudi soil of up to nearly 20%. This despite the fact that President Trump publicly stated that the deal would prohibit uranium enrichment in the kingdom. The text also removes the requirement for Riyadh to recognize Israel before it goes ahead. Well, to talk more about that, we're joined by Giorgio Cafiero. He's the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, joining us tonight from Washington, D.C. Great to have you with us, Giorgio. Welcome to the program. So, is President Trump putting the Saudis on the path to nuclear power, and what effect would that have on the region? >> Yeah, thank you so much. Really wonderful to be with you. It seems as though the Trump administration certainly wants to proceed with this agreement that was announced in July. In terms of how this impacts the region, it's not necessarily clear, but many here in Washington, especially Democratic lawmakers, are concerned about risks of nuclear proliferation as a consequence of this arrangement. To be sure, Saudi Arabia having a nuclear weapon because of this deal is by no means inevitable, but some of these voices here in D.C. are raising concerns about that being a potential risk. And obviously, if we're to imagine a future in which Saudi Arabia is a nuclear-armed state, there's a huge discussion to have about how that would impact the balance of power in the region, and how that could also potentially prompt other countries in the Middle East, and perhaps beyond, to consider developing nuclear weapons as well. But again, I want to emphasize though that this deal in of itself is certainly not going to inevitably lead to that outcome. >> Right. I mean, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said so pretty openly himself, hasn't he? He says if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, we will get one, too. >> Yeah, that is something that I think he said back in 2018. He was pretty open about that. And I think when we consider the current US-Iran confrontation, how that has impacted Tehran's assessment of the cost-benefit the costs and the benefits of developing a nuclear weapon, I think there is a greater chance now compared to previous years that Iran will actually take that step to become a nuclear-armed state. So, that really requires us to consider those words from 2018 that we heard from the Crown Prince very seriously. >> And what about, according to this report, Trump has dropped the requirement for the Saudis to recognize Israel before they proceed with supplying them with nuclear technology? Does that mean Trump's abandoned the idea of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords? >> Yeah, good question. It definitely took everyone by surprise when he took to social media to state that the kingdom's entry into the Abraham Accords would be a requirement for the nuclear deal to move forward. I think probably what I have to assume is that the leadership in Riyadh made it very clear to the Trump administration that under current conditions the Saudis are not going to move toward Israeli normalization. The Saudi leadership has been very clear about what it would need to see from Israel in order to join the Abraham Accords. Those are demands regarding a Palestinian state that I don't think anyone could imagine the Israeli government agreeing to. And therefore, where think the Trump administration probably concluded that it is just too unrealistic to imagine Riyadh joining the Abrahamic Accords at this point. And I'll add another point here, too. I think probably the White House assessed that if they were going to be firm about Saudi entry into the Israeli normalization camp, this would probably result in the kingdom uh looking to China or Russia for nuclear cooperation, and that is definitely something that the Trump administration does not want to see. >> And are you seeing signs that Saudi Arabia has kind of upended its uh previous uh defense strategy? Uh joining the Mecca Accords, for example, moving closer to China, as you say, but also uh Turkey and even Pakistan. Does this suggest that they are moving away from the uh kind of consensus among the rest of the uh Persian Arab uh Gulf countries? >> It's a really good question. As I see it, there's sort of a bifurcation taking place throughout much of Eurasia, where we see, on one hand, there's one block made up of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey. And then there's another block uh that consists of Israel, Greece, the UAE, and India. And I sort of see these as competing blocks, and clearly the Saudi-Emirati rivalry is very important here, with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi having very different visions for the region, while also sharing certain interests. But I see this as sort of the main uh geopolitical divide. But getting back to this question of the Abrahamic Accords, though, it's certainly within this context in which we see uh mounting tensions between Turkey and Israel, particularly with respect to the situation in Syria, and also tensions between Pakistan and Israel that are playing out and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Israel that have worsened since October 2023. We definitely see Saudi Arabia moving further away from sort of the geopolitical block that the UAE, Israel, and India seem to be leading.