President Donald Trump may be touting a new nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, but members of Congress are already moving to block it, saying it does not do enough to prevent Saudi Arabia from getting a bomb or impose the same inspection standards required of other nuclear countries.
Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks, Brad Sherman, John Garamendi, and Don Beyer have introduced a joint resolution of disapproval against the pact, arguing that it lacks two safeguards Washington has sought elsewhere: a commitment against enrichment and reprocessing, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol . Their challenge comes amid a war with Iran that has made the region’s nuclear risks even harder to contain than a year ago.
The Democrats’ resolution is important but faces long odds. Democrats would need enough Republican support to pass it in both chambers, and if Trump vetoed it, opponents would need two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate to override him. Furthermore, Congress would have to vote on it during the 90-session-day period of review or the pact takes effect automatically. The clock on that started when Trump sent the deal to Congress in late August.
Irregardless, there are questions swirling around the deal’s viability. First, Trump has made Saudi normalization with Israel a condition . Riyadh continues to insist on a pathway to Palestinian statehood before any normalization with Israel is considered.
Second, the Trump administration’s reluctance to support the Kingdom amidst a wave of attacks by the Houthis is creating tensions. So, while the agreement weakens the standard Washington is seeking in any eventual nuclear negotiation with Tehran, it may fall apart even before its most sensitive nuclear provisions are ever implemented.
What the deal allows and what it leaves out
The agreement submitted to Congress establishes a 30-year framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation. It would allow the United States to transfer nuclear material, equipment, components, and information to Saudi Arabia for peaceful purposes, including technology needed for power reactors. It does not itself deliver a reactor, authorize a particular export, or establish an enrichment facility. Those steps would require further U.S. approvals.
The first red flag has to do with the nuclear fuel cycle. The agreement does not require Riyadh to renounce enrichment or reprocessing, as the United Arab Emirates did in its U.S. nuclear agreement, which is widely considered the “gold standard.”
In his letter to Congress supporting the agreement , Trump explained that the deal “would permit the transfer of material, equipment (including reactors), components, and information for peaceful nuclear purposes” and “the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology to support a joint enrichment and conversion study or upon written agreement of the parties but would not permit the transfer of restricted data.”
In other words, building an enrichment facility and/or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel remain options for Riyadh, which are real proliferation concerns, especially as critics of the deal have pointed out that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself has declared both in 2018 and 2023 that “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible.”
Verification is the other red flag. Saudi Arabia has had a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 2009, but a “Small Quantities Protocol” suspended many of its reporting and inspection procedures while the Kingdom had very little nuclear material. Riyadh rescinded that protocol at the end of 2024 as it prepared to expand its civilian nuclear program, bringing the fuller safeguards procedure under the CSA into effect.
The CSA, however, is not part of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which gives inspectors broader tools to investigate undeclared activities. The deal does not require the Kingdom to adopt the Additional Protocol either, which is unprecedented. Instead, the agreement calls for additional IAEA verification at sites covered by the U.S.-Saudi cooperation. Congress should therefore ask whether those measures can detect activity outside those sites and what conditions Washington will impose before approving any enrichment cooperation.
Where politics gets in the way
While there are red flags, the nuclear arrangement is less secure politically than its supporters imply. Trump has said adoption depends on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel; the White House said the deal would be off without that step. Saudi leaders continue to advocate for Palestinian statehood as part of any future normalization, and are frustrated with Washington conditioning its nuclear cooperation with the Kingdom on normalization with Israel.
The published nuclear agreement does not explicit state that normalization is a condition. That gap between the president’s public demand and the written nuclear terms could stall implementation before the most difficult technical questions are settled.
The renewed Houthi conflict in Yemen adds another strain. Saudi Arabia has sought stronger U.S. action as Houthi advances threaten its security and Red Sea shipping routes, while Trump has held back from another military escalation. Reporting on the dispute suggests Riyadh and Washington are at odds over what their partnership should require during a regional war.
A strained security bargain gives both sides less room to compromise on conditions relating to the nuclear deal. None of this guarantees the deal’s collapse, but it makes the prospect of a Saudi enrichment project contingent on diplomacy well beyond the nuclear file.
Moreover, even if Congress cannot pass a veto-proof resolution thwarting the current deal, the exercise serves a practical purpose in that hearings and media coverage can press the administration to disclose the safeguards arrangement, explain the status of any side letters, and preserve oversight of export authorizations or enrichment decisions once the pact is cemented.
What policymakers can do
U.S. policymakers should distinguish between helping Saudi Arabia generate nuclear electricity and helping it produce its own nuclear fuel. A power reactor needs fuel, but the country operating it does not have to enrich that fuel. The UAE offers a concrete example : its four Barakah reactors generate electricity using fuel procured through international suppliers, while the UAE has ruled out domestic enrichment.
Saudi Arabia could similarly contract for reactors and buy fabricated fuel assemblies from abroad. Conventional power reactors generally use uranium enriched to about 3-5 percent; they do not require Saudi Arabia to operate centrifuges.
Riyadh might argue that domestic enrichment would protect it against interruptions in foreign supply, which is similar to Tehran’s argument. While that concern deserves an answer, less risky options exist, such as contracts with multiple suppliers, reserves of fabricated fuel, and arrangements for replacement fuel over a reactor’s lifetime.
None of that requires building an enrichment plant in Saudi Arabia. Congress can, therefore, support a civilian power program while setting a separate, much higher bar for any U.S. assistance with enrichment.
The Iran test
The administration’s approach invites a question from nuclear suppliers and nuclear power hopefuls like Tehran: Why is a domestic enrichment option tolerable for Riyadh while enrichment in Iran is treated as an existential danger? One is a friend and the other a stated U.S. foe, but the technology’s proliferation potential is the same either way. Washington also helped strengthen Nuclear Suppliers Group guidance on transfers of enrichment and reprocessing technology. It will be setting a bad example if it starts carving out exceptions for its friends.
A recent Institute of Global Affairs poll found that 43% of Americans believe Iran is more likely to develop a nuclear weapon than it was a year ago, before U.S. attacks on its nuclear facilities. Indeed, having attacked Iran and started a war, the U.S. has no idea how much Tehran is enriching today, if anything. There is no verification.
Congress now has a chance to apply the same test to the Saudi pact: What can inspectors establish, what transfers can still be stopped, and what happens if the political bargain fails? The deal may never reach an enrichment plant. Even so, the rules set during its review will outlast this administration and the current war.
Clock ticking on Democrat effort to kill flawed US-Saudi nuke deal
Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at ResponsibleStatecraft.