Coveted U.S. Nuclear Deal Is a Coup for Saudi Crown Prince

 

News analysis

Coveted U.S. Nuclear Deal Is a Coup for Saudi Crown Prince

 

Saudi Arabia has for years sought a deal to obtain American nuclear technology. The agreement, signed on Wednesday, could deepen U.S.-Saudi ties for decades to come.

 

Vivian Nereim

By Vivian Nereim

Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

July 22, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/world/middleeast/us-saudi-arabia-nuclear-deal.html

 

Saudi Arabia signed a long-sought deal to obtain American nuclear technology on Wednesday, deepening its ties with the United States at a time of war and uncertainty across the Middle East.

 

The civilian nuclear deal, which would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its soil, represents a triumph for the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. He has been trying to seal such an agreement for more than five years, pushing against opposition from American officials and experts who have raised concerns that the Persian Gulf nation could use the technology to pursue a nuclear weapon, spurring a new Middle East arms race.

 

The deal is also a signal that the Saudi leadership still views their alliance with the United States as essential and is eager to deepen American involvement in their country despite tensions stoked by the U.S. war with Iran. The joint U.S.-Israel war on Iran spurred a series of Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries, which host American military installations.

 

Nuclear reactors can take more than 10 years to build, and the deal could lock the kingdom into using American nuclear technology for decades to come, strengthening U.S.-Saudi security ties as well as commercial ones.

 

“They’re betting on that going forward,” said Karen Young, a political economist at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. For Saudi Arabia, the deal provides a moment of “power projection — literally, political power as well as electricity generation,” she added.

 

“It’s prestige within the region. It’s the future ability to say we are at par with or supersede any Iranian capabilities, and we did it with this stamp of U.S. approval,” she said.

 

For the Trump administration, the deal is “an opportunity to bring Saudi Arabia more on side” as officials chart a course forward in the war, Ms. Young said.

 

Some Gulf officials have expressed frustration with the Trump administration’s conduct in the war, which has spread rapidly across the region, killing civilians and hobbling the Gulf’s oil- and gas-rich economies.

 

While President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed have generally been very close, they clashed in May when Saudi Arabia refused to allow the U.S. military to use Saudi airspace for an operation to escort commercial tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s forces have essentially seized control.

 

In the context of those tensions, the nuclear deal “is a carrot given to the Saudis at a time where Saudi Arabia is incredibly frustrated with Trump,” said Dina Esfandiary, the Middle East geoeconomics lead for Bloomberg Economics. “It is a U.S. give, and there hasn’t really been a lot of U.S. gives to Saudi Arabia recently, or at least that’s how the Saudis feel about it.”

 

One fear raised by opponents of the deal is the fact Prince Mohammed himself had repeatedly vowed to obtain a nuclear weapon if Iran, the kingdom’s regional rival, did so.

 

If the deal goes through, it is effectively “overturning decades and decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy” at a time when Trump administration officials say they are determined to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Ms. Esfandiary said.

 

That could lead to a rush for access to nuclear technology across the Middle East, creating a “very different region” over time, said Ms. Young.

 

The deal moved ahead despite concerns in Israel, which maintains its own secretive nuclear weapons program, though it does not publicly acknowledge it.

 

The deal would need congressional approval, but as a practical matter, would likely pass, because Congress would have to assemble a veto-proof majority to override Mr. Trump’s initiative.

 

American and Saudi officials have engaged in on-and-off talks over the kingdom’s nuclear ambitions for nearly two decades. But over successive administrations, they were unable to reach an agreement on matters such as what oversight American or international officials would have over the nuclear program, and whether Saudi Arabia would be allowed to enrich its own uranium.

 

When Prince Mohammed began his rise to power in 2015, developing a civilian nuclear program became a top goal, particularly as he tried to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy.

 

The prince has said he believes that the kingdom has extensive uranium resources, and during negotiations with American officials, would not back down from a demand that Saudi Arabia be allowed to enrich uranium.

 

So far, exploration has largely failed to turn up evidence of uranium reserves in Saudi Arabia that would be economical to mine. But the issue remained a sticking point and officials have discussed different arrangements that would provide American oversight over that process.

 

To get the deal done, Mr. Trump agreed that, after a joint study on the economics of producing nuclear fuel, Saudi Arabia may be allowed to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium on their soil, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

 

When the United States entered into a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which went into force in 2009, there were far more restrictive conditions.

 

The Emirates agreed to stringent inspections, signing what is called an “additional protocol” with the International Atomic Energy Agency. And it agreed to forgo the right to produce its own fuel, cutting off the possibility that it would have the infrastructure to produce a weapon.

 

That agreement became known as the “gold standard” for nuclear nonproliferation.

 

The U.S.-Saudi deal was first reported on Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, which said that it is expected to last 30 years and would exclude other countries from involvement in the kingdom’s nuclear industry.

 

Throughout the years of negotiations, Saudi officials have repeatedly warned that they would go elsewhere for nuclear technology if they could not get American assistance — seeking bids from China, Russia, France and South Korea at various points in time. Yet they held back from signing a deal with another country, and their preference for American technology had become clear as they continued to seek it even at the cost of delaying their nuclear program for years.

 

“The Saudi desire to wait on the Americans has got less to do with nuclear and more to do with the greater relationship,” said Ms. Esfandiary, describing it as a way for them to “entrench the Americans more” in the region as they look for ways to incentivize deeper U.S. involvement in their security.

 

That line of thinking goes roughly: “If they have nuclear facilities, other areas of interest in our territory, then they will be more interested in our defense,” she said.

 

The deal offers potential benefits to the United States as well. It could be worth billions of dollars in contracts for American nuclear firms, especially Westinghouse. That company makes a large reactor called the AP1000 that the Trump administration has been keen to support.

 

The administration last month announced a plan for billions of dollars in federal loans aimed at spurring the country’s largest build-out of nuclear power plants in more than three decades.

 

A Saudi deal is thus “a big win for the U.S. commercially and geopolitically, enriching American firms and tying Saudi Arabia closer to the U.S.,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a research organization in Washington. “But the damage to the international proliferation regime is substantial.”

 

Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University, said that while the deal has been in the works for years, predating the current war, it will inevitably “cause the ire of Iran and Israel” and increase uncertainty at a time when the regional balance of power is already in flux.

 

Ismaeel Naar contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

 

Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.