Is the Trump administration secretly moving to allow Saudi Arabia to avoid U.S. nuclear non-proliferation law and policy in order to combine a civilian nuclear power program with a surreptitious nuclear weapons effort? Thanks to some intrepid reporting from the online news service the Daily Beast, we now know that the Department of Energy and the State Department have covered up six authorizations for U.S. nuclear technology companies to discuss nuclear issues with the Saudis.
There is nothing illegal about the meetings, which are authorized under Section 810 of the federal code (10 CFR 810). The regulation allows companies, with DOE approval, to discuss nuclear power technology issues with states seeking to develop a civilian nuclear power program, as long as there is no physical transfer of equipment. According to the regulations, the rules apply “to technology transfers and assistance related to certain nuclear fuel-cycle activities, commercial nuclear power plants, and research and test reactors. Covered transfers may include the transfer of physical documents or electronic media, electronic transfers or the transfer of knowledge and expertise.”
In the past, DOE has offered public access to 810 agreements. Not so with the six unveiled by the Daily Beast. DOE has said it offered confidentiality to protect “proprietary information.” The news account mentions that the House Oversight Committee fingered a firm called IP3, which had ties to disgraced former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn when he was in the White House, as wells a several other “retired generals, diplomats, and energy experts,” as offering a proposal to the Saudis.
Following up, the Reuters news service reported, based on a document it reviewed, that the companies involved with the preliminary discussions with Saudi Arabia “have provided us written request that their authorization be withheld from public release.”
Under the law, before the U.S. and Saudi Arabia can strike a nuclear technology transfer deal, the Saudis have to agree to eschew activities that could lead to a weapons program, including uranium enrichment, and reprocessing spent civilian fuel for plutonium. The 1954 Atomic Energy Act Section 123 provides for a mechanism for U.S. firms to aid foreign nuclear power projects, by what’s known as a ‘123 Agreement,’ which gives Congress the opportunity to reject the deal.
The Trump administration has not said whether it plans to submit a 123 agreement to Congress, although the Saudis have made it known that they object to requirements to avoid nonproliferation actions. In February, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told CNBC, “We won’t allow them to bypass 123 if they want to have civilian nuclear power that includes U.S. nuclear technologies.”
Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal, an influential member of the House of Saud, responded, “Well, the nuclear energy marketplace is open. It’s not just the United States that is providing nuclear technology. We have France, we have China. We have our friends in Pakistan and in other places as well, so if they want to remove themselves from that market, well, that’s up to them.” Pakistan is notorious for providing other countries, including North Korea, with weapons technology under the table.
Saudi Arabia’s effective ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, has made it clear that he’s reluctant to sign a 123 agreement with the U.S. and would embark on a Saudi weapons program should Iran restart its now-dormant endeavor. The Trump administration’s main negotiator with Saudi Arabia, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, has a close relationship with the crown prince. As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof noted early in March, Kushner has a troubling nuclear conflict. Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian company with some $300 billion in assets, bailed out Kushner’s failing 666 Fifth Ave. property, with $1.1 billion for a 99-year lease. Brookfield also now owns Westinghouse Electric, which hopes to sell reactors to Saudi Arabia. Trump overrode his security officials to grant Kushner a top secret clearance.
Two noted nuclear nonproliferation experts, liberal Victor Gilinsky and conservative Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Arlington, Va., wrote in January in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “It is evident that despite the Khashoggi murder, and all it has revealed about Saudi Arabia and the worthlessness of its representations, the Trump administration still hasn’t given up on selling the kingdom technology that would inevitably give it a leg up on getting a bomb.”
— Kennedy Maize