U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman during an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 18, 2025. (REUTERS)
President Donald Trump is walking into what could end up being "the worst nuclear deal in history," one leading security expert warned for MS NOW, as his new deal with Saudi Arabia "could unleash a flood of new nuclear programs."
Joseph Cirincione is a national security expert who currently serves as the vice chair of the Center for International Policy Board of Directors. On Saturday, he published a piece for MS NOW digging into Trump's recently announced nuclear deal with the Saudi government, which will allow the Middle Eastern country — where Trump's family has done numerous business deals — to "enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, the two ingredients used in nuclear bombs."
This comes despite Trump and his administration's dogged insistence that "nuclear technology is a grave threat in the hands of Iran’s ruling regime," and that it would inevitably use these materials to create a nuclear bomb. The ruling family of Saudi Arabia has in the past asserted that it would pursue the development of such weapons if Iran ever came to possess one. Cirincione warned in his piece that this situation could become a perilous slippery slope, arguing that "If the Saudis get this technology, others will demand it too."
"Since the dawn of the Nuclear Age, U.S. policy has denied the ability to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium to other nations because it is a shortcut to nuclear weapons," Cirincione explained. "The huge and expensive facilities can be developed openly and legally until a government takes the quick jump from making fuel rods to making the cores of bombs. With this deal, Trump has effectively just green-lit a Saudi nuclear bomb program. How did we get here?"
Despite Saudi Arabia's past claims about an interest in nuclear power, Cirincione saw numerous flaws in that logic, noting that "Nuclear is the most expensive way to produce electricity, and Saudi Arabia sits on an ocean of oil and is ideally suited for much cheaper solar and wind energy production." The nation pushing for nuclear power would "make little economic sense."
"Saudi Arabia wants the entire nuclear fuel cycle," he continued. "It wants to make the fuel for the reactors, then reprocess the spent fuel rods when they are used up. The same centrifuges that spin uranium gas to enrich it to the low levels required for nuclear fuel can spin it to the high levels for the cores of nuclear bombs. The same reprocessing plants that can break down used fuel rods for waste disposal can separate out the reactor-produced plutonium in those rods for use in nuclear bombs. With these plants, Saudi Arabia would have both pathways to the bomb. The Hiroshima atomic bomb was made of uranium; the Nagasaki bomb, plutonium."
He concluded: "... Saudi influence in Washington is powerful, particularly with Trump and his business partners, who could profit handsomely from the deal. It will take an all-out effort to block what could be the worst nuclear deal in history."