Saudi Nuclear Deal: Quid Pro Quo or Self Dealing? You decide!

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.