{"id":15363,"date":"2026-07-24T05:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T00:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15363"},"modified":"2026-07-24T05:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T00:00:33","slug":"did-trump-just-kill-his-own-saudi-nuclear-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15363","title":{"rendered":"Did Trump just kill his own Saudi nuclear deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><strong>What happened?<\/strong> On Wednesday, the Trump administration formally concluded what\u2019s called a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/bureau-of-international-security-and-nonproliferation\/releases\/2025\/01\/123-agreements\">123 Agreement<\/a>\u201d to work with Saudi Arabia on the development of its civilian nuclear power infrastructure. This kind of deal allows the United States to provide another country with nuclear fuel and equipment on the condition that they submit to safeguards against building a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">But on Thursday morning, after the negotiations were quite literally concluded, Trump threw a monkey wrench into things \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116969149016233329\">posting on Truth Social<\/a> that the deal was \u201ctotally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The Abraham Accords are a series of agreements from Trump\u2019s first term that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and some nearby Arab states. In effect, then, Trump is saying that Saudi Arabia will not get its 123 Agreement unless it formally recognizes the State of Israel. Which the Saudis are unwilling to do <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inss.org.il\/publication\/saudi-israel-2026\/\">absent the creation of a Palestinian state<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><strong>Why is Trump doing this? <\/strong>As is often the case with his strange last-minute decisions, no one really knows. There are a few leading guesses, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The first is that the agreement with Saudi Arabia was a bad idea on the merits. Experts on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2026\/07\/22\/us-nuclear-deal-with-saudis-includes-path-enriching-fuel\/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzg0NjkyODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzg2MDc1MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3ODQ2OTI4MDAsImp0aSI6IjAxMTliMGI4LTczNzktNDJkNC04MjlhLTdiYTYzZjk5NjE3MyIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9idXNpbmVzcy8yMDI2LzA3LzIyL3VzLW51Y2xlYXItZGVhbC13aXRoLXNhdWRpcy1pbmNsdWRlcy1wYXRoLWVucmljaGluZy1mdWVsLyJ9.XHc4_yUTogU02ZUKmc-Sd0LxAY5ZYyiBGKIfNKFFJNs\">nuclear weapons<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/abuaardvark.bsky.social\/post\/3mr7wripqys27\">Middle East<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/danieldrezner.substack.com\/p\/worst-negotiators-ever?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=1010841&amp;post_id=208150290&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=7ttw&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email\">international relations more broadly<\/a> all said that the deal gave Saudis exactly what they wanted with virtually nothing in return, effectively surrendering a key piece of leverage Washington has on Riyadh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The second is that other American friends in the Middle East got angry. The Israelis are a leading candidate, as they have long opposed any agreement that might bring the Saudis closer to a nuke. The Emiratis, often in competition with Saudis for regional influence, are another; their nuclear deal with the US, inked in 2009, is a lot stricter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><strong>What\u2019s the takeaway: <\/strong>Unless something changes radically, Trump has blown up a nuclear deal that\u2019s already been signed \u2014 humiliating his negotiators and angering the Saudis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">And with that, it\u2019s time to log off\u2026<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">As of today, we are officially two weeks away from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2026\/07\/13\/nfl-preseason-hall-of-fame-game-when-2026\/90893292007\/\">NFL\u2019s first preseason game<\/a>. Our long national nightmare of calling soccer \u201cfootball\u201d is almost over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What happened? On Wednesday, the Trump administration formally concluded what\u2019s called a \u201c123 Agreement\u201d to work with Saudi Arabia on the development of its civilian nuclear power infrastructure. This kind of deal allows the United States to provide another country with nuclear fuel and equipment on the condition that they submit to safeguards against building&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2247337124.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.732984293194%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}