Yesterday, I repeated what almost everyone else was reporting: that the nuclear agreement the United States had just signed with Saudi Arabia might allow the Saudis to enrich uranium on their own soil.
Today, I owe you a correction. I want to be precise here, because the story changed twice in twenty-four hours, and I only reported the first version. So here’s the timeline:
On Tuesday, the Department of Energy announced that the United States had signed a civil nuclear agreement with Riyadh, including a so-called 123 agreement and a separate safeguards accord, creating a deal that could last for decades and be worth billions of dollars with American companies selling nuclear reactor technology to Saudi Arabia.
But the official announcement did not say whether Saudi Arabia would be allowed to enrich uranium, as it did not permit enrichment, but it did not explicitly rule it out either; naturally, the press filled that silence with the absolute most explosive interpretation available, and frankly, I did too.
Then, on Wednesday, Trump posted this—and I am quoting the actual post here: “The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!)... will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
Read that twice, because Trump did two completely separate things in a single post: first, he killed the enrichment story, which is the correction I owe you, meaning as of today and according to the public record, there will be no uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.
Second, he added an entirely new condition to an agreement his own government had announced as signed just one day earlier, considering normalization with Israel did not appear anywhere in Tuesday’s announcement, yet by Wednesday morning, Trump casually declared the nuclear deal was “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords.
If you have watched Trump or Elon Musk operate for long enough, you will recognize the exact rhythm: they build the plane while it is already flying, break things first, ask questions later, and change course in public while everyone else is still desperately reading the fine print.
For Trump, a signature has never meant that a negotiation is over; a signature is usually just another opening bid, and the other side often ends up learning about the new terms on social media. That appears to be how the Saudis learned about this condition too: in the exact same absurd way you and I did.
And before anyone asks, yes, Congress still gets a turn, because a 123 agreement must be submitted to Congress before it can take effect, which means this deal still has at least two more opportunities to completely change shape: one in Washington and another in Riyadh.
Which brings us to the real question: why would Trump tie Saudi Arabia to Israel now, right in the middle of a war, when the Saudis have explicitly rejected that trade for years?
My guess is that the nuclear reactors were never the real point here. The giveaway is a specific number that popped up in the world’s turbine order books this summer:
