Introduction

Nearly two decades after Washington and Riyadh first began discussing civil nuclear cooperation, the two governments signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, commonly known as a 123 agreement, on July 22, 2026. A month later, on August 24, the White House submitted a package to Congress which included the texts of the 123 agreement, its Bilateral Safeguards Agreement (BSA), and Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement (NPAS). The deal arrives at an extraordinary moment for the Middle East. As Washington uses military force in part to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it is offering Saudi Arabia a pathway toward enrichment capabilities, which the United States has never offered before to a non-nuclear-weapon state. The significance of the deal lies not simply in what Saudi Arabia is buying, but in what Washington is willing to concede on safeguards, fuel-cycle provisions, and nonproliferation precedents overall.

From the Gold Standard to Georgetown 

The latest US–Saudi negotiations on a bilateral nuclear trade agreement took place nearly a year ago at the Four Seasons hotel in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The two governments signed a Joint Declaration on the Completion of Negotiations on Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s November 2025 visit to Washington, signaling that nearly two decades of prior on-and-off again negotiations had concluded.

The first discussions on nuclear trade with Saudi Arabia were in 2008, under the George W. Bush administration, which led to a signed a memorandum of understanding on civil nuclear cooperation. At that time, Riyadh pledged to rely on international nuclear fuel markets rather than pursue domestic uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing – the two routes for producing fuel, for both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The following year, the neighboring United Arab Emirates (UAE) would set the “gold standard” for 123 Agreements by renouncing domestic production of nuclear fuel (enrichment and reprocessing) and expanding access to international inspectors under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol.

By 2012, Riyadh’s position had changed, only hardening over what would become a cycle of stalled and renewed negotiations through the Obama and first Trump administrations, with little progress made by 2020. Negotiations and eventual entry into force of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran demonstrated that the United States and its partners would tolerate uranium enrichment under robust international verification. From then on, the Kingdom’s bargaining position was strategic parity: It would not forego an enrichment capability if Iran retained one. In 2018, Riyadh backed Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, calling it a “flawed agreement.” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also made it clear that, if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would, too, “without a doubt.”

The Biden administration approached civil nuclear cooperation as part of a broader effort to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Behind the scenes, U.S. and Israeli officials reportedly also explored a US-owned or US-operated enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia to satisfy both Riyadh’s demand for a domestic enrichment capability and Israeli security concerns. The Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza effectively ended any near-term prospect of normalization, however. Saudi Arabia has since maintained that formal relations with Israel would require progress toward Palestinian statehood.

All indications are that Saudi-Israeli normalization was not discussed as a condition of nuclear trade during the 2025 negotiations in Georgetown. There was no mention of normalization when U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright met Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in April, nor on July 22 of this year when they signed the nuclear cooperation agreement. President Trump appeared to add this as a condition — in a post on social media — only after adverse public reaction to the deal.

Enrichment Pathway and Delayed Reprocessing

The US-Saudi 123 agreement establishes a set of conditions that may pave a pathway for Saudi Arabia to ask for prior consent to enrich uranium, exclusively with U.S. cooperation, reportedly, for a period of at least 10 years. The first step is the completion of a Joint Enrichment and Conversion Study (JECS), “within two years” to assess whether domestic enrichment is commercially justified and examine its nonproliferation implications, including whether the technology could be effectively safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Given Riyadh’s plans to develop the “entire nuclear fuel cycle,” including “the production of yellowcake, low-enriched uranium, and the manufacturing of nuclear fuel” for both national use and export, it is likely the JECS will consider not only Saudi demand but also how many other countries in the region are anticipated to have reactors needing fuel. Congress, therefore, is not only deciding whether it wants to support U.S. civilian nuclear trade with Riyadh and under what conditions; but if it is also willing to endorse Saudi Arabia as the potential hub for nuclear fuel and technology services for the Middle East.

If the JECS concludes that enrichment can proceed, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will enter consultations on the processes for transferring U.S. enrichment technology. Enrichment would initially be capped at 5% uranium-235. However, that could rise to a threshold of less than 20% following an additional Joint High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium Enrichment Study. If the JECS does not support the transfers of U.S. technology, then, after the ten-year exclusivity period, Riyadh could develop an indigenous uranium enrichment program or work with another (probably allied) supplier state to develop enrichment capabilities. 

While each of the 26 123 Agreements currently in force was negotiated bilaterally and therefore differs in certain ways to each of the others, the US-Saudi nuclear deal is the first to offer transfers of enrichment technology to a non-nuclear-weapon state. The commercial case rests on the assumption that the United States can supply the fuel and technology underpinning current and next generation nuclear energy. Last year, U.S. utilities imported 93% of their natural uranium and 77% of their enriched uranium, representing one of the highest levels of external dependencies among major nuclear powers. While domestic efforts to rebuild its U.S. enrichment capacity are well underway, it will take years before U.S. production can meet its domestic demand, including for its naval fleet, let alone support major new markets abroad.

Notably, the US-Saudi 123 agreement also allows the transfer of reprocessing facilities if “the Parties agree in writing.” Unlike enrichment, there is no mention of a comparable economic study for reprocessing, which is also a highly sensitive nuclear technology given the fissile plutonium produced as one of its key outputs. It is possible that there is a similar time-bounded exclusivity period set out in the confidential side letters on implementation provided to Congress.  Given that the United States has no commercial reprocessing technology to export, the agreement would likely provide prior consent for Saudi Arabia to procure reprocessing technology from US-approved allied suppliers — after any exclusivity period. The reprocessing provisions therefore appear to be more about delaying the Kingdom’s ambitions than paving a pathway toward it. Nevertheless, the arrangement represents a clear rollback of the past 50 years of U.S. nonproliferation policy discouraging other suppliers from enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) transfers to non-nuclear- weapon states.

Bilateral Safeguards

The US-Saudi 123 agreement does not include the IAEA’s Additional Protocol (AP) as a condition of supply, breaking from long-held bipartisan nonproliferation policy. Instead, the deal introduces a Bilateral Safeguards Agreement (BSA), facilitating U.S. and Saudi verification at designated “covered sites,” where “sensitive” bilateral cooperation occurs. To submit it to Congress, the Trump administration invoked a never-used waiver under Section 1264 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), arguing that the agreement advances U.S. national security and nuclear nonproliferation despite Saudi Arabia not adopting enhanced IAEA safeguards.

The administration’s justification for waiving the additional protocol is largely commercial. The NDAA report submitted to Congress in November last year argues that the agreement will strengthen the U.S. nuclear industry, restore American leadership in the global nuclear market, deny strategic competitors a foothold in Saudi Arabia, and improve oversight by embedding U.S. companies in the Kingdom’s nuclear program. What it does not explain is how the BSA would match the scope of an Additional Protocol which allows the IAEA to investigate all nuclear activities, including facilities supporting the fuel cycle, such as centrifuge manufacturing plants, which may contain no nuclear material.

The BSA states that the Saudis will report, every 180 days, to the IAEA on the covered sites and that Riyadh “shall provide short notice access to the Agency during regular working hours to any place on a covered site to verify or resolve a question related to the correctness and completeness” of its declaration — an attempt to employ a light-touch approach to short-notice inspections (versus the minimum of two hours’ notice for Complementary Access under the Additional Protocol). The BSA also notes that its implementing arrangement (information exchange, access, etc.) will “involv[e] the Agency.” Washington will ask the IAEA Board of Governors (BOG) to review the BSA, not to approve the agreement itself, but to authorize Agency inspectors to accompany or observe certain bilateral inspections. The BSA is expected to go before the November BOG, nearing the end of the 90-day Congressional review period. The Board will be able to approve the arrangement without a vote.

In some ways, the BSA revives the bilateral inspection arrangements that accompanied first- generation U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements and provided the U.S. on-site inspection rights to verify the peaceful use of U.S.-supplied nuclear material, equipment and technology. This practice largely gave way to IAEA verification as partners acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and brought Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements (CSAs) into force.  For the White House, the BSA is viewed as an added layer on top of Saudi Arabia’s CSA, and therefore provides much of the practical value of an additional protocol — at least where the United States has a direct interest — without requiring Saudi Arabia to formally adopt the AP as a condition of supply.

However, this arrangement, too, represents a significant break with recent nonproliferation policy as the United States was a major advocate for the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s 2011 guidelines, which recommends recipient states have both a CSA and an Additional Protocol in force before receiving ENR technology. The sole exception is where the IAEA Board of Governors has approved an alternative regional safeguards arrangement, a provision to account for the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), the only bi-national safeguards system operating alongside an IAEA CSA. Neither Argentina nor Brazil has adopted the Additional Protocol, arguing that their unique system of joint inspections provides enough assurance that both nuclear activities in both countries remain peaceful. With the US-Saudi deal, the United States is unilaterally giving Riyadh the same exception.

Whether the BSA is viewed as a “CSA plus” or an “AP minus,” pairing the enrichment pathway with an IAEA Additional Protocol would have provided a stronger multilateral basis for managing proliferation risks of future ENR transfers by expanding the Agency’s ability to detect undeclared activities. U.S. officials assert that the United States will “black box” any enrichment technology transfer, meaning Saudi Arabia will not operate the facility, nor have access to the underlying sensitive technology. The idea is enticing, but it is also “magical thinking.” As two experts recently put it: “No such box has ever been developed, nor has it been explained publicly. That’s because it doesn’t exist.”

From Black Box to Pandora’s Box

As the first 123 agreement to offer the possibility of U.S. ENR transfers, the US-Saudi agreement sets a standard that could have broader implications for current and future 123 agreements. The first to react may be the UAE. It negotiated its 123 Agreement on the understanding that it represented the benchmark for U.S. nuclear cooperation in the Middle East. A bilateral Agreed Minute states that its terms “shall be no less favorable in scope and effect” than those the U.S. may accord to any other non-nuclear-weapon State in the Middle East. If the United States offers more favorable terms to another country, Abu Dhabi can request consultations to amend its own agreement. Therefore, if Saudi Arabia receives a pathway to enrichment that Abu Dhabi renounced, the UAE may want to revisit the terms of its gold standard.

The nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia will also likely strain ongoing negotiations with South Korea. The US-ROK agreement, renewed in 2015, permits enrichment below 20% with bilateral approval (which has not been exercised) but excludes the transfer of enrichment technology and withholds advance consent for reprocessing. A Joint Fuel Cycle Study (JFCS) on assessing the technical, economic, and nonproliferation feasibility of pyroprocessing for managing South Korea’s growing spent-fuel inventory (of 17,500 tons) was completed in 2021 but did not resolve Washington’s reluctance to grant broader consent for commercialization. Although Washington changed course in 2025 to support capabilities (but not transfers) for enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing alongside Seoul’s pursuit of nuclear-powered submarines, formal negotiations that began in June “have largely lost their momentum.”   The US-Saudi deal is not the main cause, but it will further complicate talks with Seoul.

The Trump administration argues that the agreement shuts out Russia and China from Saudi Arabia’s nuclear market. On reactor technology, the agreement reportedly establishes U.S. suppliers as preferred partners, giving American companies a stronger position against competing Russian, Chinese, Korean, and French designs. It does not, however, require Riyadh to source all its reactors from the United States. Saudi Arabia has already demonstrated an interest in diversification, having signed its first agreement for a research reactor with Argentina, while China’s CNNC, France’s EDF, Korea’s KEPCO, and Russia’s Rosatom are approved bidders for constructing nuclear power plants. At best, then, the agreement can be said to level the playing field for U.S. reactor vendors.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence that Russia or China are offering Saudi Arabia  —or any other non-nuclear-weapon state — access to ENR technology. Russia’s agreements with Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey, Hungary, and Iran, and its 2015 agreement with Saudi Arabia, for example, are based on Rosatom’s “cradle-to-grave” model, combining reactor construction with lifetime fuel supply and spent-fuel management. It should be noted that Iran’s Bushehr reactor, which Russia completed, also entails Russian provision of fuel and return of spent fuel, although that has not occurred during the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran. China’s overseas exports remain limited: exporting 5 microreactors to Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and, recently, a sixth to Thailand, with only four nuclear power plants completed abroad, and a fifth under construction -all in Pakistan. Apart from its bid to build a reactor for Saudi Arabia, the only other cooperation between Beijing and Riyadh has been on uranium exploration and a feasibility study on high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs). Saudi Arabia has also conducted joint studies with France and South Korea on reactors, the EDF Generation III+ pressurized reactor and the System-integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART), respectively. France has also provided training.

By opening a pathway to US-supplied enrichment — and potentially to reprocessing — the agreement could in fact establish sensitive fuel-cycle capabilities as a new dimension of nuclear competition. In effect, the agreement creates a new market for enrichment and reprocessing technology, inviting Russia and China to compete for a share of it. In doing so, it risks opening Pandora’s box and shifting the nonproliferation regime from universal standards toward negotiated political deals.

The US-Saudi agreement’s exclusivity clause can keep Russian fuel services out of Saudi Arabia for a defined period. However, Washington would have been better positioned vis-à-vis both Moscow and Beijing (and Tehran) if it had offered Saudi Arabia a comparable reactor-and-fuel package of its own. Instead, Riyadh extracted from Washington a fuel-cycle option that neither Moscow nor Beijing was offering.

The Shifting Middle East

On July 23, 2026, the morning after the 123 agreement with Riyadh was signed, Trump tacked on Saudi-Israeli normalization as a new condition, writing on his Truth Social platform that the civil nuclear agreement “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.” Sending the agreement into turmoil within its opening 24 hours, he also posted “no enrichment of material!” Israel’s response was measured, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issuing a brief statement that “Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an [sic] historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” but stopping short of endorsing the nuclear agreement itself.

Although Prime Minister Netanyahu is reportedly seeking normalization with Saudi Arabia before Israel’s elections in October, there is virtually no prospect that such an agreement could be achieved given that Saudi Arabia insists that normalization with Israel requires an “irreversible pathway” to Palestinian statehood, a position reinforced across the Arab world by the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the recent — and ongoing — U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. The central obstacle is therefore not simply whether the parties can agree on the substance of a political settlement, but how they sequence the steps toward it, which is compounded by the deadlock between Israel and Hamas over Gaza.

The White House 15-point roadmap announced in July is aimed “at ending the cycle of destruction” and launching a political path toward Palestinian “self-determination and statehood.” The plan calls for Hamas to give up its weapons which Hamas maintains is contingent on the establishment of a Palestinian state, while Israel officially rejected the plan on August 9, stating that Hamas’ disarmament is a condition for withdrawing from Gaza. With the deadlock, there is little evidence of an agreed political approach to verifying disarmament, much less a towards a credible — and lasting — ceasefire.

The Saudi nuclear framework also complicates Washington’s aims to constrain Iranian enrichment and may make it even harder to find a way to end the more than six-month war. Tehran may view a Saudi enrichment pathway as evidence that its own nuclear leverage has produced a new regional baseline, reinforcing incentives to preserve or expand its enrichment capabilities rather than accept further constraints. At the same time, the ongoing attacks by the United States on Iran are opening new frontlines, clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon are escalating and Gulf states are realigning their regional positions.

The White House is facing a narrowing political window before midterm elections and, in the months ahead, will be trying to align the competing political demands of Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Congress. Whether normalization ultimately becomes a formal condition of the deal remains uncertain. What is clear is that the US-Saudi nuclear deal has become inseparable from the Middle East’s unresolved — and shifting — security architecture.

Conclusion

Whether the US-Saudi nuclear agreement ultimately survives Congress, is approved with conditions, or is overtaken by events in the Middle East, its significance already extends beyond Riyadh. For the first time, Washington has signaled that commercial competition and geopolitical strategy justify departing from both bilateral and international safeguards standards. The agreement therefore raises questions that will outlast the current administration. If Congress approves the deal, it will establish new precedents for future U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements. If it does not, the negotiations have revealed how strategic competition, industrial policy, regional diplomacy, and nonproliferation are becoming increasingly intertwined in Washington. The challenge for future administrations will not simply be to export more nuclear technology, but to do so without weakening the international safeguards system that prevents states from turning civilian nuclear programs into militarized ones.