President Donald Trump said Friday that Saudi Arabia must join the Abraham Accords before any civilian nuclear agreement moves forward — clarifying what he says was always understood despite Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s announcement this week.
The president made the requirement explicit when asked whether he’d added a new condition after Wright signed a preliminary nuclear pact with Riyadh.
“No, nobody got out ahead. I mean, I just say that in order to do it, they have to be a member of the Abraham Accords, which have been very successful. But it’s time now that they do it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I’m not going to do the deal unless they join the Abraham Accords.”
When pressed on why Wright signed an agreement if the Abraham Accords condition remained, Trump said any deal still requires congressional approval — and Congress won’t see it unless Saudi Arabia signs onto the regional normalization framework.
“Because they understood that, subject to Congress and everything else, in order for that deal to go through, they had to sign into the Abraham Accords,” Trump said. “We think the Abraham Accords bring peace in the Middle East.”
The Abraham Accords — brokered during Trump’s first term — normalized relations between Israel and multiple Arab nations. Saudi Arabia has long been seen as the ultimate prize for the framework, but the kingdom has resisted joining without concessions on Palestinian statehood.
Trump argued the calculus has shifted now that Iran’s military has been significantly degraded through Israeli strikes and U.S. pressure.
“There’s no longer an Iran factor. There’s no longer Iran to worry about because they’ve been reduced in terms of their capability and power by many fold,” Trump said.
The president emphasized that any Saudi nuclear program would be limited to civilian energy generation — no uranium enrichment.
“They’ll join and they’ll do their civil. It’s really, it’s civil nuclear. But that’s what it is. No enrichment. It’s civil nuclear,” Trump said.
The remarks came during an Oval Office event celebrating four privately funded reactor companies meeting Trump’s goal of bringing new advanced reactor designs online by the Fourth of July. Trump hailed the milestone as a “renaissance of nuclear power in America.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment on the Saudi condition or Wright’s timeline for congressional review.
Trump’s linkage of the nuclear deal to Abraham Accords membership puts the ball squarely in Riyadh’s court — and sets up a test of whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will prioritize nuclear energy access over the kingdom’s longstanding refusal to normalize ties with Israel without Palestinian gains.
