WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Saudi Arabia wants U.S. help developing its own civil nuclear program, and the Trump administration says it is \u201cvery excited\u201d at the prospect. U.S.-Saudi cooperation in building reactors for nuclear power plants in the kingdom could shut the Chinese and Russians out of what could be a high-dollar partnership for the American nuclear industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite that eagerness, there are obstacles, including fears that helping the Saudis fulfill their long-standing desire to enrich their own uranium as part of that partnership would open new rounds of nuclear proliferation and competition. Saudi Arabia\u2019s pursuit of a nuclear agreement is likely to play into the ever-evolving bargaining on regional security issues involving the U.S., Iran and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This coming week, Republican President Donald Trump will make his first trip to Saudi Arabia of his second term. Here\u2019s a look at key issues involved in the Saudi request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who traveled to Saudi Arabia before Trump\u2019s trip, said the world can expect to see \u201cmeaningful developments\u201d this year on helping the kingdom build a commercial nuclear power industry. Wright said the U.S. was \u201cvery excited\u201d about it<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That does not necessarily mean there will be any big breakthroughs on Trump\u2019s trip, said Jon Alterman, head of the Mideast program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Something smaller that still signals to the Saudis and the Iranians \u2014 with whom Trump is pushing for an agreement limiting Tehran\u2019s nuclear program \u2014 that Washington is interested in cooperating on Saudi efforts could be the U.S. aim for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere would be a lot of ways to show progress toward an agreement on a Saudi nuclear program without fully committing to a partnership on it,\u201d Alterman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saudi Arabia is a global oil giant, but it is also largely a desert. Running all those air conditioners uses a lot of petroleum that the kingdom would rather be exporting. The Saudis\u2019 own oil consumption burns up one-third of what the country produces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also is pushing to build up Saudi Arabia\u2019s mining and processing of its own minerals. That includes Saudi reserves of uranium, a fuel for nuclear reactors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the Trump administration,\u00a0any deal with Iran\u00a0that lets Tehran keep its own nuclear program or continue its own enrichment could increase Saudi pressure for the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s even though Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have toned down their enmity toward Iran in recent years and are supporting the U.S. efforts to limit Iran\u2019s nuclear program peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the U.S., any technological help it gives the Saudis as they move toward building nuclear reactors would be a boon for American companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Internationally, there is support for U.S. efforts to strike a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, given that the Saudis could turn to the Chinese and Russians for help developing a nuclear industry, with fewer safeguards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The feeling is \u201cif the U.S. doesn\u2019t provide it, then someone else will,\u201d said Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow in Bahrain for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWithout a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible,\u201d Prince Mohammed said in 2018, at a time of higher tension between Arab states and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states stress better relations and diplomacy with Iran now. But Prince Mohammed\u2019s comments \u2014 and other Saudi officials said similar \u2014 have left open the possibility that nuclear weapons are a strategic goal of the Saudis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Saudis long have pushed for the U.S. to build a uranium enrichment facility in the kingdom as part of any nuclear cooperation between the two countries. That facility could produce low-enriched uranium for civilian nuclear reactors. But without enough controls, it could also churn out highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump administration officials cite the Saudis\u2019 desire to make use of their country\u2019s uranium deposits. The kingdom has spent tens of millions of dollars, with Chinese assistance, to find and develop those deposits. But the uranium ore that it has identified so far would be \u201cseverely uneconomic\u201d to develop, the intergovernmental Nuclear Energy Agency says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has been decades since there has been any state-sanctioned transfer of that kind of technology to a nonnuclear-weapon state, although a Pakistani-based black-market network provided enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and possibly others about 20 years ago, Robert Einhorn noted for the Brookings Institute last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allowing Saudi Arabia \u2014 or any other additional country \u2014 to host an enrichment facility would reverse long-standing U.S. policy. It could spur more nuclear proliferation among U.S. allies and rivals, Einhorn wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under Democratic President Joe Biden, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had looked at nuclear cooperation as just one part of broader negotiations that also involved Saudi desires for U.S. arms and security guarantees and for a satisfactory long-term deal on behalf of Palestinians. The U.S., meanwhile, had tied the cooperation to Saudi Arabia agreeing to normalize relations with Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration seems to have unpacked some of that big bundle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the administration may still see holding off on any major civil nuclear agreement as leverage in brokering what would be historic diplomatic relations between the kingdom and Israel, Alterman noted. Getting to that agreement, part of what\u2019s known as the Abraham Accords between Arab states and Israel, has been a chief goal for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Wright\u2019s trip, some Israelis expressed their opposition to allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, and Iran and Saudi Arabia are both carefully watching the other\u2019s talks with the U.S. on their nuclear issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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