Nuclear Political Saudi
Saudi Uranium Deal, Term Limits Push, and the Senate's Fracture Lines
The single most consequential foreign policy decision to emerge from the Trump White House this week is the tentative agreement to allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium without the safeguards that have governed nuclear technology transfers for decades. Under the standard 123 Agreement framework established by the Atomic Energy Act — what nonproliferation experts call the 'gold standard' — recipient countries agree not to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium domestically. The United Arab Emirates and South Korea accepted those terms. Saudi Arabia has explicitly refused them, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has openly stated that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia will pursue one as well.
The administration's apparent rationale is preventing Saudi Arabia from turning to China or Russia for nuclear assistance. But the nonproliferation community is alarmed: a Saudi enrichment exception would be even more destabilizing than the 2008 India nuclear deal — which permanently weakened the NPT as a universal standard — because it is occurring simultaneously with active Iranian nuclear tensions and ongoing military conflict in the same region.
On the domestic political front, Senator Ted Cruz has authored a term limits constitutional amendment explicitly timed to Senator Mitch McConnell's hospitalization, now entering its second month. Cruz's proposal would limit senators to two six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms. The measure has drawn expressions of support from across the ideological spectrum — including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ron DeSantis — reflecting broad public appetite for accountability reform. The practical pathway, however, is extremely narrow: constitutional amendments require two-thirds majorities in both chambers and ratification by 38 states.
Senator Lisa Murkowski has broken with Trump over the SAVE Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Her objection is practical and specific: in rural Alaska, obtaining and presenting required documentation could cost voters more than a thousand dollars in travel and administrative expenses, effectively disenfranchising Indigenous constituents for whom birth certificates and passports are genuinely difficult to obtain. Her defection, joining a small number of other Republican senators, is contributing to the legislation's declining odds of passage before the August recess.
Two other stories round out the domestic picture. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Congresswoman Luna allegedly told an associate in advance that Trump would select JD Vance as his running mate, enabling a winning Polymarket bet — an allegation now under CFTC investigation that highlights the regulatory gray areas surrounding political prediction markets. Separately, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, whom Trump has endorsed for Minnesota governor, has been found to be registered to vote in Texas, not Minnesota — a notable irony for a figure whose public identity is built on election integrity.