Does the U.S.-Saudi Civil Nuclear Agreement Serve America's Interests?
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What is the U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement and why does it matter?
Do you want a nuclear enrichment program in Saudi Arabia that is US based, or do you want it with someone else? Because having it with no one, that's not one of the options on the
menu. The real American national interest is a stable nuclear order, and you achieve that through rules and principles and not spreading enrichment and reprocessing.
We used to own the global enrichment market. На Русі газ портифа процента да маркет. China built thirty-seven nuclear power plants in the last ten years. We built three in the last thirty.
If we do this, we will be sacrificing core American national security interests for what? So that a few people can make a lot of money.
Before we get started, I'm gonna come in with just a few notes right here because this debate gets a little technical, and there's some terminology that's used throughout the debate by all of the debaters, start to finish, that are really key to their arguments and that it's important that you understand. And they're not terms all of us are necessarily familiar with. Okay, so the first one is uranium enrichment. And to put it very simply, Enrichment is the process that concentrates the part of uranium ore that can be used to make a nuclear reaction and eventually making it potent enough to produce nuclear energy. But if it becomes even more concentrated, if you keep going with this concentration process, then it becomes highly enriched uranium.
And if it's very highly enriched, nuclear weapons can be made from it. That is an important point. Okay, another term, additional protocol. Additional protocol is the name of a specific legal document that grants permission for an international agency to expand inspections and monitoring of uh nuclear facilities beyond a standard comprehensive safeguards agreement. That's the other term. Um, and it's basically more inspection power. So that is also important. And finally, The International Atomic Energy Agency, sometimes referred to as the IAEA, you'll hear that referred to repeatedly. That is an organization that works with the United Nations and monitors and safeguards nuclear energy use throughout the world, including doing those inspections for the additional protocol.
So it all ties together. Let's get to the arguments. Saudi Arabia made its fortune with oil, but now it aims to go nuclear. And the United States aims to be the outside power that helps them get there. Smart move or something we will all live to regret. That's what we are here to debate in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations. We're on their stage in Washington, DC. I'm John Don van. This is open to debate. Let's meet our debaters first. Please welcome Amos Hockstein. Uh Amos, you are uh a managing partner of TWG Global. You were the Biden administration's uh negotiator on many, many topics in the Middle East, including some of the topic that we're getting to tonight, working to bring nuclear power to Saudi Arabia.
You were, as they say, in the room where it happened many, many times. How do you feel now that this deal might be coming into sight?
Well, John, I was negotiating the broader agreement of Saudi Israel normalization. I wish we were at the end of that process.
Uh understood. Understood. Your partner, I want to welcome his ladies and gentlemen, Daniel Poneman. Daniel, thanks for joining us remotely from Paris. To people who cannot see, I want to explain that you are on a video screen as you are overseas, but uh you're hooked up and taking uh and and and able to hear and be heard. Um, you were on the National Security Council under Presidents Bush and Presidents Clinton. You served as Deputy Secretary of Energy for six years. You actually led uh some nuclear negotiations. Those ones involved Iran. Uh, you are also in the private sector as the CEO of Centris Energy. And I'm also interested to hear that you are the only member of the panel on the stage tonight who also participated.
In a televised contest known as Jeopardy. And you won ten grand. So is today's debate a piece of cake compared to that?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement and why does it matter?
0:00–4:23
2
How do the debaters define uranium enrichment and the additional protocol?
4:23–26:09
3
Why do proponents argue the deal advances U.S. non‑proliferation and strategic interests?
26:09–45:13
4
What are the opponents’ concerns about proliferation and Saudi intentions?
45:13–1:17:00