Trump slams brakes on Saudi nuclear deal with Abraham Accords demand

President Trump has thrown the Saudi nuclear deal into question less than 24 hours after it was signed, making it conditional on the Saudis normalizing relations with Israel. His Thursday announcement appears vastly different from what sources familiar had disclosed about the deal on Wednesday, raising questions about whether it marks a U-turn or just a confusing rollout. The Saudis have long said that any normalization with Israel is conditioned on seeing a pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state, something Israel has dismissed. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in a briefing that Trump has said if the Saudis don't join the Abraham Accords, "the deal is off." When asked why the condition wasn't mentioned Wednesday when the Energy Department announced that the deal was signed, Leavitt said it was because Trump "is always the final dealmaker." Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the conditions most likely caught the Saudis off guard. "This is the president trying to kind of backtrack and address the concerns from a lot of Israel supporters and hawks in general that we didn't get anything in return for this," Clark said. "It's clearly just trying to clean up the previous statement that they made with the agreement."