Trump's Rare Feat in Iran
The president announced a deal framework that nearly everyone hates.
The Trump administration recently achieved a rare feat: It announced an international deal that virtually everyone, Democrats and Republicans, hates. The deal, signed on July 22 by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, would give Saudi Arabia American technology to build nuclear power plants and, reportedly, to enrich uranium on its own soil.
This being the Trump administration, that an agreement was signed doesn’t mean anything will happen. In fact, the very next day, Trump said it would not go forward until Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel as part of the Abraham Accords (which the Saudis will not do right now). That the Saudi deal went as far as it did, however, reinforces something that should by now be obvious about Trump’s foreign policy – its essence is corruption.
The idea of a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia was first floated by the Biden administration. I thought it was a bad idea then, but at least Biden and his team had a coherent argument for it — that they could dangle the prospect of helping Saudi Arabia develop nuclear energy to induce it to recognize Israel, as part of a grand bargain in which Israel would end the carnage in Gaza and recommit to some kind of Palestinian self-governance.
Had all sides done their part, Biden would likely have insisted that the Saudis meet terms similar to what is considered the “gold standard” in exporting U.S. nuclear technology — an agreement the United Arab Emirates signed with the U.S. in 2009 that allowed it to develop nuclear energy while foregoing uranium enrichment (the UAE purchases its nuclear fuel from other countries) and submitting to stringent inspections managed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Trump, in contrast, allowed his energy secretary to negotiate and sign a nuclear agreement with the Saudis with no preconditions related to Israel, Gaza, or anything else the United States cares about — only adding the Abraham Accords linkage in a social media post after Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing the finalized deal. And the agreement appears to fall well short of the UAE “gold standard” — with no IAEA enforced safeguards or prohibition on Saudi enrichment of uranium. This would leave open the possibility that Saudi Arabia would someday enrich its nuclear fuel to weapons grade, in keeping with its Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman’s stated threat to build nuclear weapons if Iran does the same.
So, let’s review here. The deal the Trump administration signed would:
set a precedent for selling nuclear technology to countries that don’t agree to international safeguards, undercutting decades of American efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation;
give Iran an excuse to refuse strict safeguards on its nuclear program, undermining Trump’s own (and everyone else’s) goal of preventing it from getting a nuclear bomb;
require Saudi Arabia to do absolutely nothing for America in exchange.
Why would any administration do something this stupid? No matter what foreign policy philosophy you subscribe to, interventionist or isolationist, progressive or neo-con, pro Iran war or against it, there are just no good arguments for it. So, by process of elimination, the only fact that makes it make sense is that the Trump administration — or, more precisely, the Trump family — has built a parallel relationship with the Saudis based not on the national interest but on personal profit.
It’s no secret. Trump and a company close to Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, Dar Global, entered into a partnership after his election in 2024 to develop billions of dollars of Saudi real estate, including Trump-branded golf courses, towers, and shopping plazas. This is a massive transfer of cash directly to the Trump family solely for the right to use his name. Meanwhile, the company that owns Westinghouse (which would likely be building Saudi Arabia’s promised nuclear reactors) has a close business relationship with the company run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s sons.
To be clear, there is no evidence of a quid pro quo, in which the Saudis were told they would get a nuclear deal in exchange for lining Trump’s pockets. But Saudi Arabia and the other wealthy Persian Gulf countries clearly were led to believe after the 2024 election that helping the Trump business operation would lead to better treatment from the Trump government operation. And so it went: The United Arab Emirates invested $2 billion in Trump’s phony cryptocurrency, then got a license to import America’s most advanced AI chips. Qatar was informed that Trump fancied a particular well-decked-out 747 he had seen; its leaders didn’t want the Saudis and Emiratis to win the race for his favor; and presto, a new Air Force One was born.
Even without a smoking-gun bribe, there is a screaming conflict of interest when a president’s foreign leader counterparts are also his private business partners. The work of advancing the national interest blends with personal dealmaking until the distinction is lost. Decisions that make the principals (and their similarly compromised Cabinet members) richer and happier naturally start to seem attractive and normal.
So, what is to be done? The key American players in these corrupt deals believe they can do what they please because Trump will pardon them at the end of his term. But that doesn’t mean Congress, and the next president, should feel helpless.
Presidential pardons only protect a person from prosecution; they would not shield a company owned by Trump, Lutnick, or anyone else from criminal or civil action that could lead to crippling fines, if a future Justice Department finds evidence linking a foreign payment to an official action by a U.S. official. The foreign officials involved could be prosecuted or subject to sanctions under the Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (which has an anti-corruption prong); a future administration could also bar foreign companies and sovereign wealth funds that took part in a scheme to corrupt our government from investing in the United States.
If Democrats win control of the House or Senate this year, they should immediately make these potential consequences clear and start investigations that could identify targets for prosecution and sanctions. They should do so not just because corruption is evil, but also to scare the hell out of anyone, in the United States or abroad, who might want to use Trump’s last two years in office to compromise our national security for profit.
Tom Malinowski is a former member of Congress from New Jersey who was an assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration.
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The attainable repercussions in the last couple paragraphs are what I want to be hearing from our elected leaders.