The Trump-Saudi-Israel drama
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What was announced in the Trump–Saudi civil nuclear deal and why did it spark immediate controversy?
President Trump announced a big nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia last week. Energy, not weapons. Weapons usually come later. But what makes this one kind of wacky was that Trump had to immediately walk his own deal back. Turns out people were big mad that the deal appeared to leave out one of our allies in the Middle East. Maybe you've heard of Israel. So Trump says, JK, this deal's contingent upon Saudi Arabia signing on to the Abraham Accords. In case you forgot about Abe, he's a landmark set of agreements between Arab states and Israel to normalize relations. Normalization means, basically, play nice. Set up embassies, talk about trade, security, that sort of thing. The point is, that's not in the deal.
But Trump's people are going on the TV and saying, We are in discussions with the Saudis about coming into normalization with Israel.
All this as Benjamin Netanyahu travels to Washington to meet with the president on Tuesday. Awkward. Two guys named Michael are going to help us wrap our heads around this big bad deal on Today Explained from Vox. Support for the program today comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats, according to Consumer Advocate. You get paid back up to 90% of vet bills at any vet in the United States and Canada with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to FetchPet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That is FetchPet.com slash save. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.
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Michael Gordon writes about national security for The Wall Street Journal, and he's been all over this Saudi Arabia deal.
I did a lot of reporting on this, and I've been tracking this issue really since the first Trump administration. And what's interesting about this, and it's important to understand the context and the history here,
How does the Abraham Accords factor into the US demand for Saudi normalization with Israel?
is this issue was explored during President Trump's first term in office and then during President Biden's term in office. In fact, President Biden was prepared to go through with a civil nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia, but only on certain conditions. He had a plan that would sort of provide something for everyone. There could have been a U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation deal, which basically means the U.S. provides the technology to Saudi Arabia. And the American companies do a lot of the work. But that was going to be conditional on Saudi Arabia establishing formal diplomatic relations with Israel. That was under Biden. And there were other aspects to it. Biden envisioned a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia would be the only defense treaty the U.S.
had. as with a state in the region. U.S. doesn't have one with Israel. And because the conditions for Saudi normalization are a credible pathway toward a Palestinian state, there was something in it for the Palestinians as well. All of that was basically undermined when Hamas attacked Israel and all that was essentially put on the shelf. What happened under President Trump was he revived One portion of that, which was the civil nuclear agreement, it was signed. And there's nothing in the agreement about normalization.
So President Biden was also interested in a deal of this sort. But is it not true that for years the United States refused to help Saudi Arabia develop a civilian nuclear program?
Well, the U.S. proliferation policy for a long time had been to try to discourage the spread of potentially dangerous nuclear technology in the Middle East. And, for example, there is a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates that It's known as the gold standard. And it's called the gold standard because the United Arab Emirates has reactors purchased from South Korea, but with American technology.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
What was announced in the Trump–Saudi civil nuclear deal and why did it spark immediate controversy?
0:00–2:20
2
How does the Abraham Accords factor into the US demand for Saudi normalization with Israel?
2:20–9:30
3
What is the historical US approach to Middle East civilian nuclear cooperation and how does this deal differ?
9:30–27:28