US-Saudi nuclear deal faces swift backlash on multiple fronts

The Trump administration faced immediate backlash from non-proliferation advocates and supporters of Israel on Wednesday after news broke of a nuclear cooperation deal signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The agreement could eventually allow the Saudis to enrich uranium, raising fears the Gulf power could build a nuclear bomb. While Saudi Arabia has a friendly relationship with the Trump administration, it remains a rival of Israel in the region and has been accused of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attack just 25 years ago. 

Critics are calling for congressional review of the deal signed Wednesday by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

“A bad U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is coming for congressional review — inexplicably, carried over from the Biden administration,” Andrea Stricker, the nonproliferation program deputy director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on X.

“Congress should block it. If it does not, one hopes the policy will be reversed by a subsequent administration before too much damage is done in terms of watering down safeguards, setting negative precedents for other states, and failing to contain the spread of enrichment and reprocessing — which we just put back in the box in Iran via force,” she added.

The decades-long “peaceful” deal, which includes “bilateral safeguards,” was designed to solidify ties between Washington and Riyadh and provide the U.S. nuclear industry with billions of dollars. 

It’s a departure from the gold standard that was adopted in the U.S.-United Arab Emirates nuclear accord in 2009, in which the Emirates agreed to not enrich uranium and allow for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The so-called 123 Agreement is designed to create a framework for U.S. companies to assist Saudi Arabia in developing its civilian nuclear program. The Energy Department said it will create U.S. jobs, expand nuclear technology exports and “reinforce global nonproliferation standards.”

A key point of the deal sets up U.S. companies to build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia if a joint study between the two countries says it’s warranted, according to reports.

Critics of the deal want safeguards that would ensure Saudi Arabia couldn’t create a nuclear weapon. Sources told ABC News that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have agreed to safeguards, but that it would be overseen by the two countries and not the IAEA, like the deal with the UAE.

The White House has not publicly commented on the deal. The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

“These agreements reflect our two nations’ shared commitment to strengthening U.S.-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,” Wright said in a statement. “Rest assured, these 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.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio would not comment on the plan’s details Wednesday but said it would be put out “when the moment is appropriate.”

“We have to do it with Congress anyways, so we’ll certainly do it publicly,” Rubio said. “But suffice it to say the U.S. is not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation.”

Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the announcement has been a long time coming, but doing it now gives “some advantage to the Trump administration.”

“There will be less impulse from Congress to resist the sharing, sale and transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia because one of the main opponents of the idea was Senator Lindsey Graham,” she said. “The politics have shifted, meaning the US position on demanding normalization have softened.”

She also noted this could be a way to “offer some support to Saudi Arabia in the context of the conflict with Iran.”

Former President Biden aimed to secure a similar deal with Saudi Arabia that would use American companies, but the Biden deal also aimed to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations. Negotiations were cut short after the terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel in 2023.

John Hannah, Senior Fellow with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said the reported details of the energy deal raise more questions than answers, including why the U.S. gave up enormous leverage to secure Israeli-Saudi normalization by moving forward solely with Riyadh’s nuclear demands. 

“If Saudis can get everything they seek from the US, no matter how politically difficult and strategically risky, without biting the bullet on normalization, what incentive will they have to take the risk with Israel later?” he asked. 

Hannah, who served in foreign policy positions in Republican and Democratic administrations, said Trump could be calculating that Israeli-Saudi normalization is a nonstarter given the fallout from Israel’s war against Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. 

He also raised the possibility that the U.S. is seeking to keep Riyadh from reaching out to China on nuclear technology, or that talks on Saudi-Israeli normalization are still happening behind the scenes. 

Hannah worried the deal could undermine the push to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, a key point of the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war, and give license to Russia and China to do their own deals around the world, circumventing IAEA protocols. 

Richard Nephew, who advised both the Biden and Obama administration on issues like sanctions and non-proliferation, wrote on social media that while he’s “all good with creativity and innovation…in some of our nonproliferation policies and structures,” some choices made by the Trump administration are “concerning at first blush.”

He specifically noted that the removal of the IAEA’s role in monitoring.

Last year, a group of Democratic congressmen and senators wrote a letter to Rubio in the lead-up to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House, urging the administration to include the “strongest possible ‘gold standard’” non-proliferation measures in any nuclear cooperation agreement between the two nations. 

Lawmakers asked in the mid-November letter if the U.S. is considering constructing and operating a uranium-enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia. 

Paul D. Guaglianone, the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, told lawmakers in March that once signed and it goes into effect, the deal would “establish a legal framework for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar nuclear energy partnership” between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and “our industries in a manner consistent with strong standards of nuclear nonproliferation, safety and security.” 

The March 2 letter, which was obtained by The Hill on Wednesday, said the deal would ultimately be submitted to Congress “for the statutorily required review period.”

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