President Donald Trump has signed off on a nuclear energy agreement with Saudi Arabia that could ultimately give the kingdom the ability to enrich uranium for its civilian power program, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of a formal announcement expected as soon as Wednesday.
The arrangement is expected to span 30 years and bring American companies into the buildout of Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure. Under the deal, a joint U.S.-Saudi study could eventually pave the way for an enrichment facility to be constructed inside the kingdom.
The agreement is slated to go before Congress for review, where it’s likely to run into resistance from lawmakers concerned that enabling Saudi enrichment capability could reignite fears of nuclear proliferation across the region, says the AP.
Saudi Arabia belongs to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based body tasked with both promoting peaceful nuclear development and inspecting member states to guard against covert weapons programs. Even so, one of the sources said the deal is not expected to include the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would grant inspectors broader authority to monitor and verify nuclear activity within the country.
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News of the impending announcement, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, lands amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, a conflict driven in part by efforts to dismantle Tehran’s nuclear weapons capability, even as Iran continues to insist its program is strictly peaceful. Neither the White House nor Saudi officials in Riyadh immediately responded to requests for comment.
The push for a nuclear partnership with Saudi Arabia isn’t new. Both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, previously pursued deals to bring American nuclear technology into the kingdom.
But nonproliferation specialists caution that any enrichment infrastructure on Saudi soil carries real risk, particularly given Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s own past remarks suggesting he’d pursue nuclear weapons capability if Iran ever obtained one.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright met with his Saudi counterpart last year to discuss expanding the kingdom’s commercial nuclear sector, a trip that preceded Trump’s own visit to Saudi Arabia. The Department of Energy did not respond to a late-Tuesday request for comment.
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The nuclear discussions come against a broader backdrop of shifting regional security alliances.
Saudi Arabia recently entered into a mutual defense agreement with nuclear-armed Pakistan following Israel’s strike on Hamas officials in Qatar, with Pakistan’s defense minister indicating afterward that his country’s nuclear capability would be available to Saudi Arabia if needed, a statement widely interpreted as a signal to Israel, which is generally regarded as the region’s only current nuclear power.
Acquiring enrichment capability doesn’t by itself hand a country a nuclear weapon; building an actual bomb requires mastering additional technical steps, including precisely synchronized explosives. But enrichment is widely viewed as a critical gateway toward weaponization, which is precisely why Iran’s program has drawn such sustained scrutiny from Western governments.
By comparison, the United Arab Emirates pursued a different path when it signed its own 123 agreement with Washington to build the Barakah nuclear plant with South Korean help, opting out of enrichment altogether, an approach nonproliferation experts frequently cite as the model other nations should follow.
