This is an adapted excerpt from the July 23 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
As President Donald Trump’s reckless war with Iran stretches on indefinitely, the man appears desperate for a win in the Middle East. And to that end, he shocked the world this week by announcing a big nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, of all places.
Under the deal, Saudi Arabia will be able to develop a civilian nuclear program, which includes enriching uranium. In exchange, American companies will make billions by building the infrastructure for said program.
But if you know anything about the art of Trump’s dealmaking, you will not be shocked to learn this deal is a lot less impressive than it looks.
On Thursday, after the agreement had already been signed, the president was desperately trying to alter the terms via social media, writing that the deal was “totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.” (In other words, normalizing relations with Israel.)
If you know anything about the art of Trump’s dealmaking, you will not be shocked to learn that this deal is a lot less impressive than it looks.
The Saudis have long maintained that such a process would require Israel to recognize a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing government has vowed will never happen — even before Israel responded to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks with a mass campaign of death and destruction in Gaza that has killed an estimated 15,000 children, according to UNICEF.
So the Saudis are, it’s fair to say, not pleased with the alteration to the deal they already made. And now the entire thing might fall apart, all because of the slapdash way Trump put the whole thing together.
Trump’s actions have left everyone furious with him. The Israelis are likely mad because the original deal left out the only part they care about, the Saudis are presumably not going to agree to join the Abraham Accords and Middle East hawks here at home think the deal was too lenient in its safeguards against the Saudis making a nuclear weapon.
Frankly, it is kind of beside the point. The Saudis have a mutual defense pact with Pakistan, which does have nukes. And it has long been speculated that the kingdom could simply acquire a nuclear weapon from it, if it so desired.
But the hawks are still angry. Everyone is angry. And so we are forced to ask the question, “Why did Trump make this deal that everyone hates so much?”
There are a few possibilities worth considering. One is that he is completely flailing in the Middle East right now. The Iranian-backed Houthis are firing at Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, which could lead to a wider regional conflict; Iran has kept the Strait of Hormuz shut; oil has crossed $100 a barrel again; gas prices are back up over $4 and still rising; Trump’s cratering in the polls and threatening war crimes and escalation on social media, which the populace has no appetite for; and Fox News pundits are more or less begging him to end this war.
So one possibility is, given all that context, he is just desperate for a win. Maybe he thought a deal with the Saudis would somehow give him a parachute to escape the political crisis he made. It’s not exactly clear how he thought that could happen, but it would explain why he rushed into an agreement he is now desperately trying to get out of.
Of course, the other possible reason Trump made this deal is that there was a quid pro quo after all. Just not the one that Israel wanted. After all, Trump’s family sure does make a lot of money from the Saudis.
Remember when the Saudi sovereign wealth fund gave Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner $2 billion for his investment firm over objections from some of its advisers? And Kushner is still gallivanting around the region with Trump’s buddy Steve Witkoff, ostensibly trying to broker peace deals.
The Trump Organization also has a $10 billion deal to develop a bunch of so-called luxury properties throughout the country, including in Riyadh and on the West Coast near the Red Sea.
In fact, as Forbes reported, in 2024 alone, Trump and his family made an estimated $50 million from their dealings with Saudi Arabia.
Of course, Trump has said he doesn’t do any of this wheeling and dealing directly. You can decide if you believe that.
So when you consider that context, it seems at least possible that Trump would want to cut the Saudis a pretty friendly deal. And it’s not like this is unprecedented. Right before the inauguration, an official from the United Arab Emirates quietly struck a $500 million deal with the crypto company founded by the sons of Trump and Witkoff. Not long after, the Trump administration reversed course on a Biden-era policy and allowed the UAE to purchase high-end processing chips used for artificial intelligence. (The White House has denied any conflict of interest or connection and would like you to believe that was a coincidence.)
What I will say is that it sure looks like — on multiple occasions now — the Trump family received a quid from a foreign government, shortly before that country received a quo from the United States.
At the end of the day, we can’t really say for certain if this deal was borne of flailing incompetence, or corruption or some combination of the two. All we can say definitively is that every single decision this president makes, almost without fail, makes everything worse.
Allison Detzel contributed.
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