The U.S. Department of Energy signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia on July 22, 2026, opening a legal path for the kingdom to enrich uranium on its own soil. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the pact, known as a 123 Agreement, alongside a separate bilateral safeguards deal, according to the department.
Less than 24 hours later, President Donald Trump said in a social media post that the whole arrangement now hinges on Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel, a condition nobody involved in months of negotiations says was ever on the table. Two governments signed one document. Within a day, the president described a different one, and Congress is now left to figure out which version actually governs tens of billions of dollars in nuclear commerce.
Two Signatures, One Contradiction
Wright called it a milestone. “Today is a historic day for the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said in the Energy Department’s statement announcing the deal, adding that the agreements “uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world’s best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States.” The department said the pact, formally named for Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, would create American jobs and reinforce global nonproliferation standards.
Later reporting put the deal’s value at tens of billions of dollars, with U.S. companies positioned at the center of Saudi Arabia’s planned nuclear buildout, including a possible enrichment facility if a joint study warrants one.
By July 23, the story had changed.
The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!)… pertains only to non-military use… will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.
Trump wrote that on Truth Social, one day after his own energy secretary signed the deal. The Abraham Accords are the U.S.-brokered framework normalizing ties between Israel and several Arab states. The post blindsided Saudi officials, for whom the deal, signed without any normalization requirement, had been counted as a diplomatic win, according to NPR. The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “is always the final dealmaker” and that the agreement is off unless Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel.
What We Know:
- No Additional Protocol: The signed pact relies on bilateral U.S.-Saudi safeguards instead of the IAEA’s enhanced inspection regime.
- Enrichment stays conditional: A Saudi enrichment facility would still require a joint U.S.-Saudi study before construction could begin.
- Congress still has to review it: Lawmakers get a statutory window to object, though they cannot approve or unilaterally kill the agreement.
What’s Unconfirmed:
- Whether the Israel condition is binding: Trump’s post came after signing; no released text ties normalization to the legal agreement itself.
- Whether the IAEA has its request: The agency said it was still waiting for a formal verification request as of July 23.
The Safeguard Washington Left Out
The Additional Protocol is an enhanced inspection regime run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog), giving inspectors broader, faster access to both declared and undeclared nuclear sites. Saudi Arabia’s deal does not require it. Monitoring will instead run through a bilateral channel negotiated directly between Washington and Riyadh, according to sources cited by CNN.
That omission drew immediate criticism. Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, called it “a bad U.S. nuclear deal” and urged Congress to block it over weakened safeguards and the precedent it sets.
Richard Nephew, who advised the Obama and Biden administrations on nonproliferation policy, raised similar concerns about losing IAEA monitoring. Critics warned the arrangement could invite Russia and China to dangle similar no-strings nuclear offers elsewhere, and that missing inspection safeguards could eventually let Riyadh divert civilian technology toward a weapons track.
Abu Dhabi Set a Different Bar in 2009
Saudi Arabia is not the first Gulf state to sign a 123 Agreement. The United Arab Emirates signed its own in 2009, and it became the reference point critics now use against Riyadh’s deal.
Under that agreement, the UAE accepted the toughest nonproliferation terms Washington had to offer, a combination nonproliferation circles still call the gold standard for civilian nuclear cooperation. It is a model Washington did not require of Saudi Arabia this time.
| Agreement | Year Signed | Enrichment Rights | Additional Protocol |
|---|---|---|---|
| UAE 123 Agreement | 2009 | Renounced enrichment and reprocessing | Signed |
| Saudi Arabia 123 Agreement | 2026 | Possible, pending a joint study | Not required |
The gap between the two deals is the crux of the current fight in Congress, where Democrats spent months pushing the Trump administration toward the same standard. Senate and House Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in November 2025, urging him to secure gold standard nonproliferation commitments in any Saudi deal. The agreement Wright signed in July did not include them.
Riyadh’s Own Redline
Trump’s new condition runs into a position Saudi Arabia has held for years. The kingdom has repeatedly said it will not normalize relations with Israel without a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood, a bar Israel’s current government has shown little appetite to clear.
That leaves the nuclear deal wedged between two governments’ redlines. Riyadh wants American reactor technology, and potentially enrichment capability, without conditioning it on Israel. Washington’s president is now saying it can have one only with the other.
John Hannah of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) questioned why the United States gave up its nuclear leverage without first locking in normalization. Karen Young of the Middle East Institute said shifting regional politics could still ease congressional resistance to the deal over time. The sequencing itself is unusual: Washington had long demanded normalization before nuclear cooperation, and this deal reversed that order before Trump’s post tried, a day later, to reattach the condition after the leverage was already spent.
A Region Already Stretched Thin
The nuclear fight is unfolding alongside a shooting war next door. The United States struck Iranian targets for a 12th consecutive night, and Iran-backed Houthi forces hit two Saudi oil tankers on July 23.
Gulf capitals are managing several tracks with Washington at once. States that welcomed a US-Iran deal pressing for Hormuz Strait implementation are now watching the same administration extend nuclear cooperation to Saudi Arabia while Iran absorbs pressure on several fronts, including a cyberattack on four major Iranian banks that hit shared network infrastructure this month.
None of that regional turbulence changes the legal mechanics of the 123 Agreement. But it shapes the political room Congress has to maneuver in, and it is the backdrop against which lawmakers will weigh a deal that already looks unsettled on its own terms.
What Happens in the Next 90 Days?
Congress gets a 90-day statutory window to review the signed agreement, The Hill reported. Lawmakers cannot vote to approve it, and it is unlikely they could stop it outright, but they can pass a resolution of disapproval and use hearings to press the administration on safeguards, the enrichment study and Trump’s new Israel condition. The prospects for U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation are tracked in the Congressional Research Service’s own nonpartisan primer on such agreements.
Reaction on Capitol Hill split along familiar lines.
- Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): called the arrangement outrageous.
- Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.): warned that unsafeguarded enrichment could trigger a regional nuclear arms race.
- Rep. Mark Alford (R-Miss.): said Congress should be central to any final decision, while still backing Saudi Arabia as a regional partner.
Stricker said Trump’s Abraham Accords condition “may, helpfully, serve to delay the agreement from coming to fruition, since it was already signed and the Saudis now have to address whether they want to normalize relations with Israel.”
The pact follows Washington’s decision in November 2025 to elevate Saudi Arabia to major non-NATO ally status, a designation that opened the door to advanced U.S. military hardware, including F-35 stealth fighter jets. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Paul Guaglianone told Congress the nuclear deal will still go through the statutory review process regardless of how the Israel dispute resolves.
The Fine Print Still Isn’t Public
The full terms of what Wright and Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman actually signed remain undisclosed. Rubio said details would be released publicly “when appropriate” but gave no timeline. The White House has not said when the review period officially starts its clock.
The IAEA, for its part, said on July 23 it was aware of the planned request for verification work but had not yet received one. “We look forward to receiving the request for such verification and to working with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in ensuring the implementation of those measures,” the agency said in a statement.
Until that request arrives, the only two documents on record, the Energy Department’s signed agreement and the president’s Truth Social post, remain the closest thing the public has to knowing what the deal actually allows.
