The stark contrast between Donald Trump’s nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and his nuclear demands for Iran would be comical if not so tragic. Trump has handed the Saudis the same nuclear options he swore Iran would never have.
To make matters worse, Trump seems to have offered the Saudis this sweetheart deal to make amends for his disastrous war of choice with Iran. Meanwhile, he continues to bomb Iran in a push to open the strait of Hormuz, which was not closed until Trump launched his counterproductive war.
As recently as this past April, Trump reiterated in discussing Iran: “There will be no enrichment of uranium.” That goal had become more urgent because, once Trump ripped up the nuclear accord negotiated by Barack Obama, Iran stepped up its enrichment to near the level needed for an atomic bomb. When Israel and the United States started bombing Iran in June 2025, Iran also barred independent UN inspectors.
So what does Trump offer the Saudis? The possibility, after a joint study, to enrich uranium (and reprocess spent atomic fuel) and to bar inspectors from certain sites that they might deem suspicious. The lack of inspectors would mean there is little to prevent the Saudi government from transforming a civilian nuclear program into a clandestine weapons operation, despite Saudi Arabia (like Iran) being a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Saudi crown prince has said that his country would develop a nuclear weapon if Iran did. Notably, Trump’s deal is much less stringent than the 2009 deal negotiated by George W Bush and Barack Obama with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s neighboring ally-turned-competitor.
Trump describes himself as having mastered the “art of the deal”, but his agreement with the Saudis is likely to torpedo any more restrictive deal with Iran. Iran is already being asked to forsake a nuclear weapon while Israel has them. Any claim that Israel can be trusted to handle its weaponry responsibly is belied by its genocide in Gaza and its decimation of much of that occupied territory as well as southern Lebanon. Now Iran must consider that its Saudi adversary could also develop a bomb.
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Why would Trump agree to such a deal? Money seems to have played a big part. The deal could provide tens of billions of dollars to the US nuclear industry if it were to sell reactors to the Saudis. Suddenly the principle that Trump said was worth fighting for can be jettisoned for the right price.
I suspect part of the reason is Trump’s effort to revive an alliance that his war has jeopardized. Trump has long had a soft spot for the Saudi crown prince, who possesses the kind of monarchial power that Trump covets. Like other Gulf Arab states, Saudi Arabia had looked to the United States as a security partner, even wanting to formalize the arrangement with a treaty.
But Trump’s war has made the partnership risky. Rather than the United States protecting its regional allies, the war provided an excuse for Iran to attack them, targeting the US military bases on their soil and sometimes their petroleum and other infrastructure.
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About the only good thing that can be said about Trump’s giveaway to the Saudis is that it reflects a continued lessening of the genocidal Israel’s influence in Washington DC. An earlier version of a Saudi nuclear deal was premised on the Saudi government opening diplomatic relations with Israel. That requirement has now been abandoned. Riyadh has said that recognition is off the table without “a credible and irreversible path to a Palestinian state”. Netanyahu is doing all he can to prevent that.
As the nuclear rationale for war wears thin, Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has begun to stress the importance of Iran allowing the strait of Hormuz to reopen. Trump has gone so far as to threaten war crimes – bombing Iran’s bridges and power plants – for every Iranian attack in the strait, even though war crimes by one side never justify war crimes by the other.
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But the strait was open until Trump’s war encouraged the Iranians to retaliate asymmetrically by closing it. Now, Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran – another brilliant stroke by the master negotiator – implicitly allows Iran to charge fees after 60 days.
In other words, the main remaining justification for war has become a matter that was never an issue before Trump’s war, while Trump has effectively given away with his Saudi deal a main rationale for starting the war.
There of course is another factor behind the continued bombing. Trump seems to be seeking a face-saving concession from Iran before his Republicans face a midterm debacle. But that is hardly a reason for more bloodshed and destruction.
Revelation of the Saudi deal comes as the Trump administration is trying to persuade Congress to fund a deeply unpopular war that it had no say in launching. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, says it has cost $37.5bn so far. That is about what it would cost for, say, a year’s rental assistance for 2.3 million low-income people, or to enable about 7 million people to maintain their health insurance.
And to make matters worse, Hegseth wants a total of $67.1bn to keep the war going. Because Trump cannot articulate a persuasive rationale for his pointless war, Congress should say no. This war never should have started and now clearly should not continue.
