U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Deal Faces Swift Backlash on Multiple Fronts

The Trump administration faced immediate backlash from non-proliferation advocates and supporters of Israel on Wednesday after news broke of a nuclear cooperation deal signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

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John Hannah, Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said the reported details of the energy deal raise more questions than answers, including why the U.S. gave up enormous leverage to secure Israeli-Saudi normalization by moving forward solely with Riyadh’s nuclear demands.

“If Saudis can get everything they seek from the US, no matter how politically difficult and strategically risky, without biting the bullet on normalization, what incentive will they have to take the risk with Israel later?” he asked.

Hannah, who served in foreign policy positions in Republican and Democratic administrations, said Trump could be calculating that Israeli-Saudi normalization is a nonstarter given the fallout from Israel’s war against Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks.

He also raised the possibility that the U.S. is seeking to keep Riyadh from reaching out to China on nuclear technology, or that talks on Saudi-Israeli normalization are still happening behind the scenes.

Hannah worried the deal could undermine the push to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, a key point of the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war, and give license to Russia and China to do their own deals around the world, circumventing IAEA protocols.

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