President Donald Trump has approved a sweeping 30-year nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that would put American companies at the center of the kingdom’s civilian nuclear program and could eventually allow uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.
Two administration officials confirmed the deal to the Associated Press on Tuesday, with a formal announcement expected as early as Wednesday.
The agreement is the most significant shift in US nuclear export policy in decades, and it is happening for one clear reason: the Iran war has made Riyadh’s strategic alignment worth more to Washington than the nonproliferation guardrails that have governed civilian nuclear cooperation since the Atomic Energy Act.
What the Deal Actually Does
The agreement would give US firms a primary role in building Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear infrastructure over 30 years, a contract worth tens of billions of dollars. It would shut out Russian and Chinese competitors who have been courting the kingdom for years with fewer strings attached.
The most contentious provision, according to NBC News, would authorize the construction of a uranium enrichment facility on Saudi territory if a joint US-Saudi study determines the step is warranted. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said enrichment is “not part of” the deal as signed, but arms control experts warn the study mechanism is a pathway, not a prohibition. If the study greenlights enrichment, spinning centrifuges in Riyadh would become a US-backed reality.
The deal is also expected to lack the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would allow for enhanced monitoring, inspections, and verification of nuclear activities. That omission is not incidental. It is the tell.
The Iran War Made This Inevitable
Strip away the diplomatic language and the deal’s logic is transactional: the US needs Saudi Arabia locked in as a strategic partner while American forces are engaged in active combat against Iran, and Riyadh has leveraged that dependency into the nuclear cooperation agreement it has sought for years.
The Pentagon’s latest estimate puts the cost of the Iran conflict at $37.5 billion and climbing, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting an additional $67 billion supplemental from Congress. Saudi airspace, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic coordination are woven into the US operational posture across the Gulf. The kingdom’s price for that cooperation has always included civilian nuclear technology, and this war gave it the leverage to collect.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been explicit about Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions. In a widely cited 2018 interview, he said the kingdom would pursue nuclear weapons if Iran obtained them. That statement has not been walked back. The deal’s enrichment study clause gives that ambition a US-endorsed foothold.
Congress Will Fight Over This, but Probably Not Enough
The Trump administration plans to submit the agreement to Congress after the formal announcement. Under the Atomic Energy Act, Congress gets 90 days to review nuclear cooperation agreements, but rejecting one requires a joint resolution of disapproval that can be vetoed.
Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a longtime nonproliferation advocate, issued a statement accusing the administration of “caving to the Saudis on nuclear nonproliferation.” He called the deal a capitulation that would “set off a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region on Earth.”
The criticism is bipartisan in principle but unlikely to produce a veto-proof majority in practice. Defense hawks in both parties have been reluctant to challenge the administration’s Middle East posture during active hostilities, and the tens of billions in industrial contracts for US nuclear firms create a built-in lobbying constituency.
The Proliferation Risk Is Not Hypothetical
Arms control experts have been unambiguous about the stakes. PBS NewsHour reported that analysts warn any enrichment capability within Saudi Arabia could serve as the foundation for a weapons program, regardless of the deal’s stated civilian purpose. The technology for enriching uranium to reactor-grade levels is the same technology that, with further enrichment, produces weapons-grade material. The difference is one of degree, not kind.
The absence of the IAEA Additional Protocol makes the risk concrete rather than theoretical. Standard civilian nuclear agreements include the protocol as a baseline safeguard. Omitting it signals that the monitoring regime will be negotiated bilaterally between Washington and Riyadh, outside the international framework designed to prevent exactly this scenario.
For Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear arsenal but has historically opposed Saudi nuclear ambitions, the deal introduces a new variable into an already volatile regional equation. The Trump administration has framed the agreement as a stabilizing move that binds Saudi Arabia to the US rather than pushing it toward Russia or China, but stabilization and proliferation are not mutually exclusive outcomes.
The Precedent Problem
The deal’s long-term significance may outlast the Iran war that created the conditions for it. If the US establishes a precedent that wartime alliance management can override nonproliferation norms, other nations in the Gulf and beyond will take note. The UAE’s existing “123 agreement” with the US explicitly prohibits enrichment and reprocessing on Emirati soil. That prohibition was considered the gold standard for civilian nuclear cooperation. Saudi Arabia just negotiated something less restrictive, and it did so by leveraging a war.
The question Congress should be asking is not whether the deal serves US interests during the current conflict. It does, narrowly. The question is whether a 30-year nuclear agreement crafted under wartime pressure and stripped of standard safeguards will still serve those interests when the war is over and the centrifuges are spinning.