President Trump sends Saudi nuclear deal to Congress for approval, while maintaining his demand that Riyadh normalize ties with Israel before the deal can be finalized.By David Rosenberg, World Israel NewsPresident Donald Trump has formally sent a landmark 30-year civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress while refusing to drop his demand that Riyadh normalize relations with Israel before the deal can move forward, according to reports Tuesday.“The president’s position has not changed that the agreement will only move forward if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords,” a US administration official told Reuters.The move advances the nuclear agreement through the legally required congressional review process while preserving a condition Trump unexpectedly imposed after Washington and Riyadh had already negotiated and signed the pact.US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the agreement in Washington on July 22.The Department of Energy described it at the time as a “decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership” that would give American companies a major role in developing Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear industry.A day later, Trump announced that Saudi recognition of Israel would be required for the agreement to proceed.“The Civil Nuclear Deal … will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.Trump also insisted there would be “no enrichment of material” under the arrangement and said the Saudi program would be limited to peaceful, nonmilitary purposes.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reinforced Trump’s position shortly afterward.“Yes, this deal with Saudi Arabia, this energy deal, is contingent on this condition as far as the president is concerned,” Leavitt said. “We will continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalized and hopefully see them joining the Abraham Accords very soon.”Trump’s intervention effectively restored Israeli-Saudi normalization as a central component of a nuclear agreement that his administration had initially negotiated separately from diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem.Under the Biden administration, US officials had pursued Saudi nuclear cooperation as one element of a much broader proposed package that included security guarantees for Riyadh and Saudi recognition of Israel. Those negotiations were disrupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack and the subsequent Gaza war.The Trump administration ultimately reached the nuclear agreement without first securing normalization, prompting concern in Israel and among some US lawmakers that Washington had surrendered one of its strongest sources of leverage over the Saudi government.Trump’s subsequent declaration sought to put that leverage back into the equation.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the president’s move at the time, saying Saudi membership in the Abraham Accords would represent a major regional breakthrough.“As President Trump has said, Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said. “Peace through strength.”The Saudi government, however, has repeatedly maintained that it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without an irreversible path toward the creation of a Palestinian state — a demand that remains sharply at odds with the position of Netanyahu’s government.It remains unclear whether Trump’s normalization requirement is actually written into the nuclear agreement submitted to Congress. AP reported that officials familiar with the document would not say whether the condition appears in its text.The agreement itself has also attracted scrutiny over nuclear proliferation concerns.According to the Wall Street Journal, it calls for a two-year US-Saudi study examining the commercial viability of establishing a uranium enrichment facility inside Saudi Arabia.Any such facility would be operated by American companies under safeguards designed to prevent sensitive nuclear technology from being transferred to Saudi control.Trump, however, has publicly said the agreement will not permit enrichment.Critics have also noted that the pact does not appear to require Saudi Arabia to accept the same restrictions agreed to by the United Arab Emirates in its 2009 nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington. The UAE renounced domestic uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel — provisions commonly described as the “gold standard” for US civilian nuclear agreements.The Energy Department has rejected suggestions that the Saudi agreement weakens nonproliferation safeguards.“Rest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation,” Wright said when the deal was announced.The agreement is expected to pave the way for US companies to build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, including Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, in projects potentially worth tens of billions of dollars.Riyadh has sought nuclear power as part of its broader effort to diversify its energy sector and reduce the amount of oil consumed domestically, freeing more crude for export. Washington, meanwhile, wants US companies rather than Chinese or Russian competitors to dominate the kingdom’s emerging nuclear industry.Congress now has 90 legislative days to review the agreement. If lawmakers do not pass a joint resolution rejecting it during that period, the pact can take effect. Trump could veto a congressional attempt to block the agreement, requiring a two-thirds majority to override him.The AP also reported that the full agreement submitted to lawmakers is classified, an unusual step for a US civilian nuclear cooperation pact, although previous agreements have sometimes contained classified annexes.The result leaves the Saudi deal moving forward on two parallel tracks: a potentially enormous nuclear partnership undergoing congressional review, and Trump’s political ultimatum that Riyadh establish formal relations with Israel before that partnership becomes reality.The post Trump sends classified Saudi nuke pact to Congress – while demanding peace deal with Israel appeared first on World Israel News.