Trump’s Saudi nuclear deal: what was he thinking?

**Jamie Rubin** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
Trump, with a flourish, signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, only to then backtrack, not even two days later, saying, hold on, this isn't going to happen unless you, Saudi Arabia, join the Abraham Accords.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:19)
That won't happen, certainly under this Israeli government.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:22)
Why should the West think that Saudi Arabia is any better bet at nuclear technology than Iran?

**Jamie Rubin** (0:29)
It's a mess.
Let's face it, the Middle East is a real mess we're in right now. Nuclear proliferation is starting to look like a bigger, bigger, and bigger problem than it's ever been before.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:40)
We first ask, have they eaten today? Honestly, it breaks my heart that it really does. Have you eaten today?

**Jamie Rubin** (0:47)
There is a certain unreality to this that you couldn't even make up if you were writing a Hollywood script.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:57)
Hi everyone, it is Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin back again with this latest episode of The Ex Files, and we are going to discuss what really is going on with the Trump-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal. Is there one? Isn't there one? What does it all mean? Then we're going to talk about Trump is seeming to be trapped in this Iran war, not knowing how to get out of it, being even more and ever more frustrated. And now the Houthis, yep, yet another group are entering it. They're loosely aligned with Iran. So we'll discuss all of that. Okay, Jamie, you're in New York, I'm in France, and let's just say it is a pretty bad day for climate change. It's been a bad week actually here.
Horrible, horrible wildfires, which have affected all sorts of holiday makers up and down the Atlantic coast of France and elsewhere. And Bordeaux, which I assume everybody knows, at least the name, which is the wine capital, one of the wine capitals of France, is really now being threatened with these wildfires, and the French have had to call in help from all over Europe and elsewhere to try to put them out. It's really one of the worst summers ever.
What's happening up your end?

**Jamie Rubin** (2:11)
Well, we had a bit of fire issue as well.
President Trump said to the world that it was Canada's fault. It's true there were Canadian wildfires that got out of control, and we all experienced unusual, dangerous conditions because of those wildfires across the country. So I think fires are now a new part of our life that people are reading about, learning about, figuring out how to put out, figuring out how to prevent in advance through preventative measures and figuring out how to try to help each other.

**Christiane Amanpour** (2:49)
Yeah, and again, the French are trying to learn from Spain, and everybody's trying to learn from everybody else, because it appears to be a pretty major pivot, all these wildfires, which a lot of it is being blamed on uncontrolled climate change. And we can discuss that another time, but we know that this climate change has got to be addressed, has got to be mitigated, and we cannot carry on with Trump or whoever else it is, calling it a scam, calling it a hoax, and just not putting the political weight behind fixing what is, in fact, an existential threat for the human species. And I've just made a little existential threat by kicking the table, so you might have noticed it bouncing, but I'm very fit to be tied over these fires. And leaving France and hoping we can get out without any trouble on the roads or whatever. I don't expect any, but people are worried about all of this.
Now, let us get to the first thing that we want to discuss this episode, and that is the Saudi nuclear deal with the United States. Or is it? Now, I know this has been bubbling for a while, but we want to try to talk around it and what it actually all means. So Jamie, a few days ago, Trump with a flourish signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, only to then backtrack, not even two days later, saying, hold on, this isn't going to happen unless you, Saudi Arabia, join the Abraham Accords. So let's first start with what is this deal and why Saudi Arabia? And did the Biden administration ever think about this?

**Jamie Rubin** (4:28)
Well, yes, this is basically picking up an agreement that was mostly worked out by the Biden administration as part of our effort to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel in the process, bring Saudi Arabia into the defense arrangement with the United States and provide it nuclear technology in such a way that people were not overly concerned about the risk of proliferation. It's a very, very complicated arrangement. The key to it is that the Saudis are buying American technology, they're buying American nuclear power, and then using American technology for the foreseeable future, and have to wait 10 years if they try to change their minds. So it's one of those nuclear proliferation questions that's always coming up.