Trump Admin Sends Saudi Nuclear Deal With Uranium Enrichment to Congress
The Trump administration submitted a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress on Monday, which would permit uranium enrichment on Saudi territory and take effect automatically in 90 days unless both chambers pass disapproval resolutions. Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed the deal includes a pathway for Saudi enrichment of uranium fuel for civilian reactors, though he stated such arrangements remain “many years down the road.” The agreement’s full text was sent to Congress in classified form, described by sources as “highly unusual,” with experts noting that classifying an entire civil nuclear cooperation agreement would be “unprecedented.”
The White House conditioned the agreement’s advancement on Saudi Arabia joining Trump’s Abraham Accords initiative, which normalizes diplomatic relations with Israel, despite the signed agreement containing no such mandate. An administration official stated Trump’s “position has not changed” and that the agreement will proceed only if Riyadh joins the accords. However, the White House offered no explanation for how it would prevent the deal from automatically taking effect after 90 days if Saudi Arabia does not comply, leaving the mechanism for enforcing this condition unclear.
The agreement permits Saudi enrichment without requiring adoption of the Additional Protocol, the standard international safeguard that grants the UN nuclear watchdog broad authority to inspect suspected weapons sites. Wright argued that bilaterally negotiated safeguards developed “in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency” would be sufficient to prevent weapons development. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi stated the agency’s Board of Governors must review and approve the safeguards agreement and pledged he would “never put forward an agreement that would not guarantee nonproliferation.”
The diplomatic condition linking the deal to the Abraham Accords surprised Trump’s own nuclear negotiators, according to sources briefed on the matter. Trump formally approved the 30-year nuclear agreement in July, structuring it to secure dominant market access for American companies while excluding foreign competitors from Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure. Scott Roecker of the Nuclear Threat Initiative suggested the administration could refuse to finalize the agreement after Congress completes its review, potentially using the accords condition as leverage to pressure Saudi Arabia toward Israeli normalization.
The administration’s approach mirrors precedent set during George W. Bush’s presidency, when his administration withdrew a nuclear agreement with Russia from congressional consideration in 2008 following Moscow’s invasion of Georgia. Trump issued his certification for the Saudi agreement on July 16, according to the Federal Register, but the intertwining of the nuclear deal with unrelated diplomatic objectives has left lawmakers uncertain how to evaluate the agreement’s nuclear merits independently.
(Source: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/26/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-nuclear-deal?Date=20260826&Profile=CNN&utm_content=1787777104&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwdGRjcAT8SR5wZG9mBWZkaWQWUNPW_zGo1xpalQI2bG2ghAonaG4g3GV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR55T2Hst1IZkGT4sMiro6WFCClyed7RwMEwsG5N7LjK4z4diwjPhGSzT9vEnQ_aem_RBwOCizapX4ifgZJ62oCcA)agreement’s nuclear merits independently.
