U.S. and Saudi officials signed a nuclear cooperation framework this week

KUALA LUMPUR, 25 JULY 2026 —

U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed a 30-year civil nuclear cooperation framework on Monday in Washington.

Within 24 hours, President Donald Trump said on social media the framework would only advance if Saudi Arabia joined the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered pacts normalising relations between Israel and several Arab states. Riyadh has not publicly accepted that condition.

Israel’s government reacted with alarm. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that any nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia must include “the strongest possible” non-proliferation guarantees. A senior Israeli security official privately assessed that the framework could shorten Saudi Arabia’s potential breakout time to a nuclear weapon by up to five years.

An official text has not been published, but leaked excerpts suggest the framework permits U.S. firms to manage so-called “black-box” enrichment modules while promising that all fissile material will remain under International Atomic Energy Agency seals. The UAE’s 2009 agreement with the United States forbids domestic enrichment and reprocessing outright; the Saudi framework is silent on reprocessing and does not mention the Additional Protocol at all.

Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of nuclear capability reflects regional tensions. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CBS’s 60 Minutes in March 2018 that if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, “Saudi Arabia will follow suit as soon as possible.” Iran’s programme suffered major setbacks during the U.S.

Operation Epic Fury air campaign in April, but the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in June that Iran retains sufficient centrifuge capacity and low-enriched uranium for several weapons if further enriched.

Israel views any Saudi nuclear capability as a strategic risk. The country has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and declines to confirm or deny its arsenal, relying instead on nuclear opacity. Israeli strategists argue that a Saudi nuclear capability would erode Israel’s deterrent edge and could embolden Iran’s regional proxies.

Saudi and UAE officials met in Jeddah last week to coordinate positions ahead of the IAEA board meeting in September. A Saudi Energy Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the Abraham Accords linkage but said the framework “serves our long-term energy security and diversification goals.”

The White House has not clarified whether Trump’s social-media stipulation constitutes a formal amendment or a negotiating tactic. A senior U.S. State Department official said on background that Washington is “still reviewing the legal instruments” and expects Riyadh to respond within 30 days.

Should the framework collapse, Saudi Arabia is positioned to turn to alternative suppliers. Rosatom and China National Nuclear Corporation have both held talks with the Saudi Ministry of Energy about constructing two 1.2 GW reactors at Jubail and Tabuk, projects valued at about RM45 billion each, according to filings with the Moscow and Beijing stock exchanges.

For Malaysian businesses, the immediate exposure is through palm oil trade. Saudi Arabia imported RM1.4 billion of Malaysian palm products in the first half of 2024, according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council. Any disruption to Saudi-Israel normalisation talks could affect Letters of Credit timelines and forward contract pricing, ING Bank’s Kuala Lumpur desk warned clients on Wednesday.

Longer term, Malaysian banks with U.S. dollar clearing operations—Maybank, CIMB and AMMB—could face higher compliance costs if Washington imposes secondary sanctions on any Saudi enrichment venture using U.S. technology. Maybank’s forex trading unit has begun stress-testing scenarios in which Saudi Arabia is added to the U.S. Treasury’s Non-SDN menu, a senior treasury executive said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Council on Foreign Relations argues the episode demonstrates a weakening of non-proliferation standards to achieve geopolitical objectives. “The trend toward weaker safeguards in U.S. civil nuclear agreements began under the Obama administration with India and is now accelerating under Trump,” writes CFR senior fellow Amy Myers Jaffe in a commentary accompanying the piece. The strongest objection, she argues, is that weaker rules invite further proliferation by states that cite Saudi Arabia as precedent.

The CFR piece reflects the author’s analysis and does not represent an institutional position.