Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell when he suggested that the United States was ready to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, reversing an earlier ban. Speaking to CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to warn that the state-of-the-art aircraft could significantly undermine Israel’s military edge in the region.
Two weeks on, Trump has dropped yet another bombshell, but this time the political and strategic damage to the Israeli government is incalculably greater. Washington has sanctioned a 30-year agreement with Saudi Arabia to share U.S. civilian nuclear power technology. Crucially, the agreement could allow the Saudis to establish a domestic uranium enrichment facility on their soil under U.S. oversight.
Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell when he suggested that the United States was ready to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, reversing an earlier ban. Speaking to CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to warn that the state-of-the-art aircraft could significantly undermine Israel’s military edge in the region.
Two weeks on, Trump has dropped yet another bombshell, but this time the political and strategic damage to the Israeli government is incalculably greater. Washington has sanctioned a 30-year agreement with Saudi Arabia to share U.S. civilian nuclear power technology. Crucially, the agreement could allow the Saudis to establish a domestic uranium enrichment facility on their soil under U.S. oversight.
This is deeply embarrassing for an Israeli government that has long warned that an Iranian nuclear weapons capability could trigger a domino effect of proliferation throughout the Middle East. Trump’s deal could make this domino effect a reality—without even the consolation of a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement that had previously been central to the Biden administration’s negotiating framework for further U.S. commitments to Saudi Arabia.
Israeli Economic Minister Nir Barkat did his best to project calm, remarking in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio on Wednesday that the Trump administration “has no interest in endangering Israel.” Barkat insisted that if the Saudis were interested in a civilian nuclear program, “Israel could deal with it.” Asked point-blank if Israel could live with a nuclear-capable Saudi Arabia, Barkat responded sheepishly that he did not want to dwell on the issue, attempting instead to highlight broader regional dynamics, including the possibility of Riyadh eventually joining the Abraham Accords.
Perhaps in reaction to mounting backlash, Trump has now posted on social media that the agreement “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.” At the same time, he insisted that the deal will be approved and has not elaborated on what will happen if the Saudis, as expected, are not willing to officially normalize relations with Israel.
Regardless of whether Trump’s new condition is genuine or just a tactical distraction to pacify critics, Netanyahu has already rushed to applaud it, with his office issuing a statement praising the step as “a historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.” By promoting the idea that Saudi Arabia is aligned with Israel against Iran, the Netanyahu government will try to deflect the fallout from the pact.
For its part, the Trump administration is insistent that strict U.S. oversight will ensure that there is no danger of the Saudi civilian nuclear project being diverted for military purposes, with the president even posting on social media that there will be “no enrichment.” Israel’s defense establishment has also voiced a similar rationalization, arguing that U.S. involvement is far preferable to the Russian or Chinese support that the Saudis might otherwise have looked for, which would pose an infinitely greater risk to Israel.
Yet these arguments leave little reason for reassurance. In 2009, when the Obama administration reached a landmark civil nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates, Washington insisted on strict conditions prohibiting domestic enrichment and the reprocessing of spent fuel. In 2011, the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group adopted export guidelines strongly discouraging the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technology. Washington has long demanded that foreign partners agree to these legally binding commitments, known as the so-called “gold standard.”
Crucially, the proposed U.S.-Saudi nuclear agreement does not include the existing framework of “gold standard” safeguards. Moreover, whereas the UAE signed the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol, granting inspectors the scope to conduct intrusive snap inspections, Saudi Arabia operates under a very limited safeguards agreement and has refused to sign the additional protocol.
What makes this agreement particularly alarming is that the Saudis have never hidden their nuclear ambitions. Saudi leaders have stated repeatedly that if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, they will move swiftly to acquire a military nuclear capability of their own. Saudi Arabia possesses the resources, technical know-how, and leverage to make good on that threat.
Israel has historically opposed any moves that strengthen the offensive capacity of regional states. The prospect of any state in the Middle East enriching uranium has always alarmed Israel because of the risk of diversion for military purposes. If Riyadh is granted a green light, states such as Egypt and Turkey will demand the same right to enrich uranium. Saudi Arabia is not currently an adversary of Israel or the United States, but no one can say who will be ruling the country in 20 years. After all, Israel once shared a strategic partnership with Iran, where it was the shah who launched a civilian nuclear program with Washington’s blessing. Today, that country and its nuclear program are considered a grave threat.
The hawkish former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the Kan public broadcaster on Wednesday that every military nuclear program begins as a civilian project. Iran’s Bushehr reactor, for example, provided the basis for the country’s weapons-grade enrichment program. Lieberman asserted, “The agreement to allow enrichment on Saudi soil crosses a red line. It puts the whole Middle East into an insane nuclear arms race.” He added that the agreement is “completely unacceptable.”
When the Biden administration explored a civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, it was explicitly contingent on a normalization agreement with Israel. Yet in spite of Trump’s new condition about the Abraham Accords, there is no normalization deal on the table, because the Israeli government is unwilling to consider the most minimal concessions on Palestinian statehood that could give the Saudis the political cover to sign such an agreement. Under Trump’s deal, the Middle East gets the proliferation risks without the diplomatic breakthrough. It is the worst of both worlds for Israel.
The deal is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars. It seeks to guarantee U.S. commercial dominance over Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure while shutting out foreign rivals. That it could simultaneously trigger a regional arms race appears to be of secondary concern to Trump.
Netanyahu famously addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2015 in an attempt to block Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. The Israeli leader failed, but three years later, during Trump’s first term, the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal. At the time, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, now Netanyahu’s most viable opponent in opinion polls, viewed the 2015 agreement as a “strategic turning point.” The collapse of the agreement dismantled the very guardrails shackling Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Israel subsequently struck Iran’s nuclear facilities in a 12-day war in June 2025 before joining forces with the United States in a broader offensive against Iran earlier this year. Although these strikes have set back Iran’s nuclear program, the longer-term strategic implications for the region and beyond are more deeply worrying the longer that the war goes on.
The postwar environment will give Tehran a far greater incentive to abandon its hedging strategy and accelerate its race to the bomb. The conflict has cleared the stage for a more fanatical leadership in Iran that will be determined to prioritize weaponization, all while classified military intelligence assessments have revealed that Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, and underground facilities.
Giving Saudi Arabia the green light for enrichment under these circumstances is likely to strengthen Iran’s motivation to obtain a nuclear deterrent. It beggars belief that the United States went to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon yet now acts in a way that is an open invitation for Tehran to weaponize. Once again, Trump has acted with serious disregard for any long-term consequences.
Meanwhile, having already burned his bridges with U.S. congressional Democrats, Netanyahu now has zero leverage over Trump. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill will likely launch a fierce battle against the pact, but the dangerous precedent has already been set.
