Approving the US-Saudi nuclear deal while reducing proliferation risks

The Trump administration’s civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia—commonly called a 123 agreement, referring to the section of the Atomic Energy Act governing U.S. civil nuclear cooperation with other countries—departs from long-standing U.S. non-proliferation policy in two important ways. Although Washington has long opposed the spread of fuel-cycle (i.e., uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing) capabilities to additional countries, the agreement established a potential pathway to enrichment in Saudi Arabia. And although the United States has led international efforts to make the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol (AP) the universal standard for effective non-proliferation verification, the administration was willing to conclude the agreement without requiring Riyadh to adhere to the AP.

These departures have been heavily criticized by some members of Congress, influential media, and non-governmental experts. Citing the Saudi leadership’s publicly declared determination to match any Iranian nuclear weapons capability, the critics argue that supporting enrichment in the kingdom and failing to require the AP could eventually result in Saudi Arabia producing nuclear weapons. With the 123 agreement now before Congress for the legislatively mandated 90-day review period, congressional opponents have introduced a joint resolution of disapproval in an effort to block it.

The Trump administration believes that the non-proliferation constraints built into the agreement—together with its economic and geopolitical benefits—more than offset the proliferation risks. Supporters of the agreement, including some former senior Democratic officials who previously negotiated with the Saudis, contend that, if Washington rejects the agreement, the Saudis will turn to other nuclear suppliers, including perhaps the Russians or Chinese, who would be less insistent than the United States on rigorous non-proliferation controls.¹

Key features of the 123 agreement—particularly its provisions giving the United States a near-exclusive role in the development of the Saudi nuclear energy program—reduce but do not eliminate the proliferation risks. And critical details about the agreement’s operation will only be worked out after it takes effect. Still, given the Atomic Energy Act’s very high bar for voting down a civil nuclear deal, the U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement will almost surely enter into force, probably as early as December 2026.

It will be up to Congress to authorize the agreement’s entry into force in a way that further reduces proliferation risks while allowing its substantial benefits to be realized. The stakes are large. Whether, how, and under what conditions the agreement goes forward has important implications for the future of the global non-proliferation regime, prospects for revitalizing the U.S. industry and enabling it to make a major contribution to the anticipated worldwide expansion of nuclear energy, and the role the United States will play in an uncertain and rapidly evolving Middle East geostrategic environment.

A possible pathway to uranium enrichment

Critics of the U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear deal focus heavily on its handling of uranium enrichment, a dual-use technology that can produce low-enriched fuel for nuclear reactors as well as highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. By establishing a possible pathway toward enrichment in Saudi Arabia, the agreement is a major departure from the long-standing, bipartisan U.S. policy of opposing the spread of enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.

The agreement does not permit enrichment in the kingdom from the outset. The two parties will conduct an enrichment and conversion study within two years that will consider such factors as the economic viability of enrichment in the kingdom and the implications of Saudi enrichment for nuclear proliferation. While some critics suspect that the study will be designed to recommend enrichment in Saudi Arabia, administration officials maintain that the conclusion is not preordained, given the many uncertainties that exist about the feasibility and commercial viability of domestic enrichment in the kingdom.²

Domestic enrichment would be prohibited while the study is underway. Indeed, according to reports that have not been confirmed in the documents released to date, if Washington persists in withholding its consent, domestic enrichment—whether carried out by Saudi Arabia on its own or with third-party assistance—would be banned for as long as 10 years after the study is completed.

However, the United States could also consent to enrichment in the kingdom once the study is completed. With the agreement widely expected to enter into force toward the end of 2026, the study would be completed by the end of 2028, with Donald Trump still in the White House and able—and many observers believe likely—to give his consent. Then, once further legal requirements are met, exports of enrichment-related equipment and technology to Saudi Arabia could begin. Enrichment in Saudi Arabia would initially be limited to 5% uranium-235, but after another study, the level could increase to nearly 20%, much closer to weapons-grade.

Critics argue that greenlighting enrichment in the kingdom would significantly increase the risks of an eventual Saudi nuclear weapons program and damage the global non-proliferation regime. For decades, the United States has refused to transfer fuel-cycle equipment and technology to countries that do not already possess them and has led the very successful international effort to discourage other nuclear suppliers from doing so.

Opponents of the 123 agreement caution that making an exception for Saudi Arabia could lead to a growing number of countries with the ability to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. It could increase the difficulty of denying similar requests from treaty allies like South Korea and Turkey, dissuading Russia, China, and others from offering their non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) customers an enrichment plant as an incentive to buy their nuclear reactors, persuading Iran to accept a multiyear suspension of enrichment, and discouraging the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from reconsidering its renunciation of enrichment, as it has a right to do under the U.S.-UAE 123 agreement.

No requirement to adhere to the Additional Protocol

Another focus of criticism of the U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement is its failure to require Saudi Arabia to accept the IAEA AP. The AP is a voluntary measure that supplements the basic comprehensive safeguards agreements (CSAs) mandated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Accepted by the vast majority of countries, the AP gives the IAEA stronger verification tools than CSAs alone, including more extensive and timely inspector access and greater information about an adherent’s nuclear program. It is particularly important for investigating suspicious activities at undeclared locations and enabling the IAEA to determine whether undeclared facilities or activities exist in a country.

The Obama administration, the first Trump administration, and the Biden administration all pressed Saudi Arabia to accept the AP as part of a 123 agreement. But the Saudis adamantly refused, arguing that inspections at culturally sensitive locations, such as holy sites and palaces, would be unnecessarily intrusive.  Concluding that continuing to insist on the AP would be a deal-breaker, the second Trump administration decided to drop it as a requirement.

Instead, the Trump administration negotiated a bilateral safeguards agreement (BSA) with the Saudis that would supplement the kingdom’s CSA and be implemented by the IAEA. The BSA would apply to “all uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, reprocessing, or any associated research and development activity undertaken pursuant to the Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.”³ It would thus apply to the most proliferation-sensitive areas of U.S.-Saudi cooperation. Moreover, the BSA’s enhanced information and access provisions were based very closely on the AP’s rigorous information and access provisions. The BSA could thus help build international confidence that sensitive, declared U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation was not being diverted to a nuclear weapons program.

There is a significant difference between the BSA and AP, however. The BSA applies only to a list of “covered sites” agreed upon by Washington and Riyadh. It does not authorize the use of expanded verification tools at undeclared locations anywhere in the kingdom, as would be the case under the AP. Critics maintain that this gap significantly increases the risk that the Saudis could pursue an illicit nuclear program at undeclared locations. They also argue that not requiring Saudi adherence to the AP could increase the difficulty of persuading current AP holdout states to join, and it might encourage some current AP adherents to renounce their existing AP commitments in favor of less effective substitutes. The overall effect could be to undermine the decades-long effort to establish a strong and universally accepted standard for non-proliferation verification.

The agreement seeks to minimize proliferation risks

The Trump administration recognizes that potentially supporting enrichment in Saudi Arabia and not requiring adherence to the AP are hardly ideal from a non-proliferation perspective. But it also believes that the agreement it negotiated significantly reduces the proliferation risks, due largely to its provisions on “exclusivity.” The agreement only allows Saudi Arabia to engage in nuclear cooperation with U.S. companies, entities approved by both governments, or entities meeting technical criteria indicating a current relationship with the United States (e.g., one that has a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license).⁴

Although apparently not explicitly provided for in the agreement, the Saudis are also expected, in the initial phase of their ambitious nuclear power program, to buy two large Westinghouse nuclear power reactors rather than competing models from China, France, Russia, and South Korea.

The administration maintains that the central role the United States will play in Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program will allow it to exert major influence over Saudi choices on a wide range of nuclear energy, non-proliferation, safety, and security issues. If Washington eventually agrees to enrichment in the kingdom, the expectation is that U.S. companies and their trusted partners would construct the enrichment facility as well as associated fuel-cycle facilities. They would design, build, and operate the enrichment plant as a “black box,” designed to be capable of preventing the transfer of highly sensitive centrifuge enrichment technology to the Saudis and of denying them the ability to replicate the facility covertly.

The administration also says that U.S. exclusivity greatly facilitates verification of Saudi compliance with both the 123 agreement and other Saudi non-proliferation obligations. The broad, multi-decade, public-private U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear partnership would involve close, continuous, on-site interactions between American and Saudi government officials, company representatives, engineers, technicians, trainers, and regulators. This heavily integrated relationship will give the United States a firsthand window into Saudi nuclear energy thinking and planning and greatly reduce opportunities for the kingdom to engage in illicit activities without U.S. knowledge.

While the BSA does not provide for IAEA access to undeclared locations outside of the listed covered sites, exclusivity helps to limit that deficiency. Any evidence of foreign nuclear activity on Saudi territory would indicate a violation of the 123 agreement’s exclusivity provisions, giving Washington legitimate grounds for pressing the Saudis for any information and access required to resolve the situation. In the absence of U.S. exclusivity, foreign nuclear entities could operate legally on Saudi territory, conceivably at sites not subject to traditional IAEA safeguards (e.g., sites without nuclear material present). The foreign entity’s legal presence could provide cover for hard-to-detect illicit activities carried out at the site.

Moreover, supporters of the 123 agreement point out that the absence of an AP does not leave the IAEA without tools to address suspicious activities at undeclared locations in Saudi Arabia. If a country does not cooperate with an IAEA request for more information or access to resolve discrepancies or uncertainties about activities at undeclared locations anywhere in the country, the CSA allows the IAEA to declare that the situation is “essential and urgent” and ask the IAEA Board of Governors to authorize a “special inspection.” Special inspections, however, hardly make up for the absence of an AP. The AP’s timely access rules do not apply to special inspections. And as special inspections have come to be seen as a highly confrontational and controversial verification tool, their use has become exceedingly rare.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, whose Board of Governors will need to authorize the IAEA to implement the BSA, seems to be taking a positive attitude toward the bilateral verification arrangement. On August 26, he told an audience at the Stimson Center, “The IAEA will never allow or endorse an agreement that does not provide us with the ability to inspect what needs to be inspected. And I believe this is going to be the case with this agreement.” As the head of the organization that traditionally favors the most rigorous verification tools, Grossi’s assessment of the BSA is likely to carry considerable weight with the IAEA Board.

In responding to criticism that administration negotiators should have held out for an enrichment ban and acceptance of the AP, supporters of the deal assert that the United States no longer has the clout it once had in international nuclear markets and is unable to dictate terms to its customers. They make the case that, if the United States had not been willing to compromise on enrichment and the AP, the Saudis would have turned to other suppliers, including the Russians and Chinese, who would have been willing to accommodate Saudi demands on enrichment and verification without pressing for non-proliferation controls as rigorous as those in the U.S.-Saudi agreement.

Supporters contend that the realistic choice for the United States was not between the ideal outcome and the current U.S.-Saudi agreement. It was between the current agreement and the deal the Saudis could have concluded with other suppliers, which may have been content with less stringent non-proliferation safeguards.

Other experts counter that there’s little basis to believe that alternative suppliers would accept weaker non-proliferation controls than the United States. They point out that Russia and China have never transferred sensitive fuel cycle technology to NNWSs and that there is no evidence that either one has offered such technology to Saudi Arabia as part of its bid to sell the kingdom nuclear reactors.

The administration and outside supporters maintain that, in addition to reducing proliferation risks, the agreement will bring significant commercial and geopolitical benefits to the United States. In their view, the Westinghouse reactor sale and a wide range of other potential commercial projects, including possible Saudi investment in U.S.-based enrichment operations, could give a much-needed boost to the U.S. nuclear industry and help it play a more prominent role in the anticipated expansion of nuclear energy worldwide.

Supporters further argue that codifying a high-profile, multi-decade U.S.-Saudi partnership would help Washington resolidify its strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia at a time when traditional U.S. partners in the region have begun to question their reliance on the United States and look to other outside powers to diversify their foreign ties. They also emphasize that the 123 agreement’s exclusivity will deny Russia and China the opportunity to gain a politically and strategically important foothold in a critical sector of the Saudi economy.

The deal should go forward but could still be strengthened

As its supporters claim, the 123 agreement now before Congress can significantly reduce the inherent proliferation risks of engaging in enrichment cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the absence of the most effective verification mechanism available. While advocates for the deal may overstate the extent to which alternative nuclear suppliers like Russia or China would accept lax controls on proliferation-sensitive Saudi activities, they have a valid point that giving the United States a central role in designing and operating the kingdom’s nuclear program will likely provide a stronger barrier to a Saudi military nuclear program than if other suppliers became the Saudis’ nuclear energy partners.

Rejecting the deal could well be a loss for non-proliferation. It could also be a loss for efforts to revitalize the U.S. nuclear industry and to maintain a significant U.S. presence in a strategically important partner in the Middle East at a time of great uncertainty and shifting alignments.

But the U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement officially submitted to Congress on August 24 is hardly ideal. It reduces the proliferation risks of fuel-cycle cooperation with Saudi Arabia but doesn’t eliminate them. And the extent to which those risks will be reduced will depend on how the agreement operates in practice. In particular, much will hinge on whether the agreement’s exclusivity provisions will give the United States the central role that has been advertised. Also critical will be whether black-boxing measures can be devised and agreed that would effectively preclude transfers of sensitive enrichment technology; whether the combination of bilateral safeguards, existing CSA measures, national intelligence collection, and credible penalties for violations can deter illicit Saudi activities; and whether U.S. companies can contribute significantly and in a timely way to the Saudi nuclear energy program and provide continuing incentives for Saudi Arabia to remain bound and compliant.

We don’t yet know all the answers to these questions. The agreement leaves some important details to be worked out after entry into force, such as how a black-box arrangement would operate and what would be the respective roles of the IAEA, Saudi Arabia, and the United States in implementing the BSA. The framework agreed by Washington and Riyadh is promising, but the value of the agreement—both in reducing proliferation concerns and in delivering economic and geopolitical benefits—will become clearer only as it is further developed and implemented.

How Congress can strengthen the agreement

Congress has the opportunity to influence how the 123 agreement is approved and implemented, particularly as it relates to the decision to permit enrichment in Saudi Arabia. But it doesn’t have much time, and its leverage is limited.

The Atomic Energy Act prescribes an entry into force procedure that makes it difficult for Congress to block a 123 agreement. According to this procedure, after the executive submits an agreement for congressional “review,” it enters into force after 90 days of “continuous session,” unless Congress adopts a joint resolution of disapproval. Such a resolution would require a two-thirds supermajority in both houses to override an anticipated presidential veto.

Entry into force, therefore, does not require an affirmative vote. The agreement does not need to be approved by Congress; it simply has to avoid disapproval. If Congress does nothing, it enters into force.

The 123 agreement now before Congress has been strongly criticized by non-proliferation experts outside government and in the editorials of major media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg. Representatives Brad Sherman and Gregory Meeks and several fellow House Democrats have introduced a joint resolution of disapproval. Democratic Senators Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, and others have introduced a bill in the Senate expressing the “sense of Congress” that the United States should oppose a 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia until it renounces enrichment and reprocessing and agrees to an AP. The bill also requires that a 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia can only enter into force with the affirmative approval of Congress.

But opponents have no chance of blocking entry into force. With Republican majorities in both houses, a veto-proof joint resolution of disapproval is clearly out of reach. Despite small, vocal pockets of resistance, the agreement has not attracted widespread public attention. With both houses in recess for the midterms, members focused on their electoral campaigns, and no committee hearings scheduled, building sufficient momentum in Congress for a disapproval resolution by mid-December—when the congressional review period ends—is an insurmountable challenge.

This process suits the Trump administration well. It would be happy to keep the issue below the radar and let the 90-day clock run out without Congress getting engaged, allowing the agreement to take effect without even a perfunctory review.

Rather than focusing on a futile effort to adopt a joint resolution of disapproval, members of Congress who see the agreement’s benefits but have concerns about proliferation should pursue a joint resolution of approval. A resolution of approval could clarify its key provisions, reinforce its non-proliferation guardrails, and preserve a continuing role for Congress in its implementation. It would require simple majorities in both houses. Although most existing U.S. civil nuclear agreements with other countries have followed the normal entry into force procedure—taking effect in the absence of a joint resolution of disapproval—there are precedents for affirmative votes of approval, in particular with China and India.

A joint resolution of approval could contain a wide range of elements. Some could clarify key provisions of the agreement and promote greater transparency and congressional oversight:

• The resolution could state Congress’ understanding of key features of the agreement (e.g., “qualified suppliers” eligible to participate in Saudi nuclear energy projects, “covered sites” that would be subject to enhanced verification under the BSA, “restricted data” that could not be transferred to Saudi Arabia in the absence of a new 123 agreement).
• It could require the executive to provide regular reports and briefings to Congress on the agreement’s implementation (including nuclear cooperation carried out under it) as well as unclassified and classified reports and briefings on Saudi compliance with the agreement.
• It could require the executive, in reporting to Congress any decision to grant consent to enrichment in Saudi Arabia, to provide a detailed justification for its decision (with information unclassified or classified, as appropriate). The justification could be required to cover such issues as the commercial viability and proliferation implications of domestic enrichment; the prospects and timing for U.S. companies to participate in the construction of an enrichment facility; plans for constructing a “black-boxed” facility, together with a technical assessment of its ability to deny Saudi access to sensitive enrichment technology; an assessment of the capability of the IAEA, using the tools available under the CSA and BSA, and national intelligence means to detect illicit nuclear activities at declared and undeclared sites; and an evaluation of penalties and other means available to deter Saudi illicit nuclear activities or nationalization of the facility.

Some elements could address the executive’s decision to consent to enrichment:

• Congress could require that any decision to grant consent to enrichment in Saudi Arabia be sent to Congress for a 90-day review period (rather than the current requirement of 15 days).⁵
• It could require that the executive’s decision to consent to enrichment could only take effect if Congress passes a joint resolution of approval.⁶
• It could require that, instead of allowing the executive to grant consent for enrichment once the enrichment and conversion study is concluded, the executive could only grant consent after an additional period (e.g., five years).
• It could call on the executive to encourage Saudi Arabia to invest in a U.S.-based enrichment operation.

Some elements could deal with verification and penalties for violations:

• Congress could require that, before U.S. consent to enrichment could be granted, Saudi Arabia must adhere to the AP.
• It could direct the executive to review and, in collaboration with Congress, strengthen the penalties for violations of the 123 agreement and other non-proliferation obligations.

Prospects for such a joint resolution of approval

Some of these illustrative elements of a joint resolution of approval are relatively modest and may be uncontroversial, including congressional statements for the record to clarify terms, calls for periodic reports, and a requirement for the executive to provide detailed justification for any decision to grant consent to enrichment. Others are more consequential—such as requiring that Congress approve the decision to grant consent to enrichment, conditioning such consent on Saudi adherence to the AP, and increasing the number of years before the United States could grant consent. These would likely require more time to gain agreement.

None of these elements would condition the 123 agreement’s entry into force on Saudi acceptance of an enrichment ban or the AP, as many opponents would prefer. Indeed, the resolution would ensure entry into force, probably as planned in December 2026, and mutually beneficial nuclear cooperation (other than fuel cycle cooperation) could soon begin.

None of the elements would require changes in the text of the123 agreement or explicit Saudi agreement. The elements pertaining to consent to enrichment would only affect internal U.S. government decisions on how, when, and under what conditions consent would be granted.

A joint resolution of approval along these lines would give Congress a critical voice in the enrichment decision, ensure that the question of enrichment would receive careful scrutiny, increase incentives for Saudi Arabia to accept the AP, and strengthen deterrence against cheating.

As to the element of deferring a consent decision for several years, a delay would be defensible. U.S. enrichers are years away from having the capability to build an enrichment facility in the kingdom, and it will be even longer before the Saudis have nuclear reactors whose fuel requirements could provide a plausible justification for an indigenous enrichment capability. Deferring any enrichment decision would provide more time for U.S. enrichment companies to build their capacity and to develop and agree with Saudi Arabia on the design of a facility capable of denying the transfer of sensitive enrichment technology.  It would also provide more time to assess international nuclear market conditions that would have a bearing on the purpose and scale of any enrichment facility in the kingdom.

The Trump administration might see some advantage in such a resolution of approval, which would be a much stronger expression of political support for its achievement than simply having the agreement take effect in the absence of congressional action. Moreover, the administration may not have strong substantive objections to a resolution along these lines. It is not eager to move ahead with enrichment in Saudi Arabia—which has always been a Saudi goal, not a U.S. one. U.S. policymakers have preferred to see the rebuilding of enrichment capacity in the United States, where currently the sole commercial enriched uranium producer is foreign-owned Urenco. Support for enrichment in the kingdom was the price Washington (under both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump) was prepared to pay to achieve other goals, including commercial and strategic opportunities (and especially for Biden, Saudi normalization with Israel). Giving careful scrutiny to and even delaying the consent decision may not be a problem for the Trump administration.

The administration may worry, however, that Saudi Arabia could take issue with some elements of the resolution and decide not to proceed with the agreement. But that might not be the case. With the 123 agreement’s entry into force, the Saudis will achieve some of their key priorities, including getting their ambitious nuclear energy program underway and reinforcing their strategic ties to the United States for the long term. While they will remain adamantly opposed to renouncing enrichment altogether, they may be prepared to subject a potential enrichment program to more detailed congressional review and to defer the U.S. consent decision for a few more years.

The Saudis are more likely to raise concerns about conditioning a future U.S. decision to allow enrichment on their adherence to the AP. But the Saudi leadership may be willing to go along with the linkage, calculating that a few years of productive nuclear cooperation with the United States—during which U.S. and IAEA officials will be making the case that AP adherence would not compromise Saudi interests—could weaken domestic resistance to the AP.

If the Trump administration and key members of Congress could agree on a joint resolution of approval, building affirmative majorities in both houses should not be politically difficult. Most Republicans could be expected to follow the administration’s lead. And while some Democrats would balk because of the agreement’s failure to ban enrichment or require adherence to the AP from the outset, enough Democrats would support the resolution because the agreement offers economic and geopolitical benefits and the resolution could help reduce proliferation risks. The fact that the Biden administration, in its unfinished 123 negotiations with Saudi Arabia, had been prepared to build a black-boxed enrichment facility in the kingdom and not to insist on the AP could make it easier for some Democrats to go along with a resolution of approval.⁷

Reducing proliferation risks globally

The U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement does not eliminate the inherent proliferation risks of engaging in sensitive fuel-cycle cooperation with Saudi Arabia. However, key features of the agreement, if further developed and implemented effectively and if supplemented by a strong congressional resolution of approval, have the potential to reduce the likelihood that Saudi Arabia will acquire nuclear weapons, especially when compared to the situation that would exist if the United States were not the Saudi partner of choice.

The U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement’s implications for the global non-proliferation regime may be harder to predict. On the one hand, in the wake of Saudi Arabia potentially acquiring an enrichment facility from the United States, some NNWSs may make greater efforts to acquire their own enrichment capabilities. Some nuclear suppliers may also become more willing to engage in fuel-cycle cooperation with NNWSs. But on the other hand, familiar impediments to acquiring enrichment and reprocessing capabilities will still exist for NNWSs, including financial costs, competing national priorities, and the risk of inviting economic pressures and sanctions or even preemptive military attacks. And nuclear suppliers such as Russia may prefer to have lucrative fuel-supply contracts with their reactor customers rather than give them the capability to make their own fuel.

Similarly, the U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement’s reliance on the BSA rather than the AP could reinforce some key countries’ current resistance to the AP. Conceivably, some current AP adherents might even consider withdrawing from the AP in favor of a weaker bilateral arrangement. But existing AP holdouts are already well entrenched in their resistance, and the prospects for getting them to adhere were already low before the U.S.-Saudi agreement. Therefore, continued Saudi unwillingness to adhere to the AP is unlikely to make a major difference in the currently uncertain prospects for achieving a universally accepted verification norm. Moreover, existing AP adherents may be reluctant to abrogate their commitment to the AP for fear of signaling nuclear weapons intent and inviting economic or military coercion.

Thus, while the U.S. departure from established non-proliferation norms in its 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia creates risks for the global non-proliferation regime, the extent to which damage to the regime will actually materialize is far from clear. But whatever the risks, the United States should do what it can to reduce them. That will mostly involve policies applicable to the regime at large rather than to the specific Saudi case, although preventing a Saudi nuclear weapons program would naturally have a positive effect on the wider regime.

Few developments would undermine the non-proliferation regime more than Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Not only would it be a key driver of Saudi nuclear ambitions—and could well result in Saudi Arabia either withdrawing from or clandestinely violating the U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement—but it would also increase proliferation pressures worldwide. Thus, preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon must remain a top U.S. priority.

The Trump administration’s deviations from previous U.S. policy in the Saudi case should not mean the abandonment of the traditional U.S. objective of preventing the spread of fuel-cycle technologies and capabilities. In consultations with other fuel-cycle possessors, Washington should seek to discourage them from drawing the conclusion from the
Saudi 123 agreement that the United States has become relaxed about the spread of enrichment capabilities. Washington should make clear that, unless and until the United States gives its consent, domestic enrichment will be banned in the kingdom. It should also make clear that any future U.S. construction of an enrichment plant on Saudi soil would be carefully restricted to preclude the transfer of sensitive enrichment technology and prevent Saudi Arabia from acquiring a truly indigenous enrichment capability.

The message would be: don’t engage in any fuel cycle cooperation with NNWSs—not even building black-boxed facilities. At a minimum, do not pursue fuel-cycle transfer policies less restrictive than in the U.S.-Saudi agreement. And the message to NNWSs would continue to be: don’t pursue indigenous fuel cycle capabilities; you don’t need them to have a successful nuclear energy program; and doing so will only raise concerns about your intentions. Does this present a double standard? Yes, but it would not be the first double standard in U.S. non-proliferation policy.

Regardless of whether the 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia ultimately succeeds in persuading Saudi Arabia to adhere to the AP, the United States should act to strengthen deterrence against violations of 123 agreements and other non-proliferation obligations, especially by NNWSs that have not accepted the AP. Richard Nephew has recommended that the IAEA Board of Governors establish expedited procedures for the “special inspections” provided for in the IAEA’s comprehensive safeguards agreements, providing the agency with a more timely and reliable tool for investigating suspicious activities at undeclared locations, even in the absence of an AP. Congress could also deter both AP adherents and non-adherents from violating their commitments by reaffirming and strengthening penalties, such as the cutoff of military exports, for violations of nuclear-related agreements with the United States.

In general, as Eric Brewer proposes, any negative fallout for the global non-proliferation regime from the U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement needs to be countered by prioritizing non-proliferation, not just in the Saudi case but in U.S. policy more broadly. The agreement’s departures from long-standing U.S. non-proliferation policies have been widely interpreted as a weakening of U.S. support for the goal of non-proliferation. This perception has been reinforced by Trump administration actions and statements that have raised doubts among U.S. allies about the reliability of U.S. commitments to their defense, prompting some of those allies to consider whether they would be more secure with their own nuclear deterrent.

In word and deed, the U.S. government in the coming years will need to demonstrate that it firmly supports nuclear non-proliferation and opposes the acquisition of nuclear weapons, even by “friendly” countries. How it proceeds on the Saudi 123 agreement—how strongly it implements and enforces the agreement’s non-proliferation guardrails—will be an important indication of its commitment to non-proliferation.

Conclusion

The U.S.-Saudi agreement on civil nuclear cooperation will almost surely enter into force, probably in the next couple of months, but its consequences for non-proliferation will depend on how the agreement is further developed and implemented. It is still a work in progress.

The Trump administration hopes the agreement will achieve significant commercial and geopolitical benefits for the United States and reduce the inherent proliferation risks of engaging in fuel-cycle cooperation with a country that clearly wants to keep its future nuclear weapons options open. That remains to be seen.

For now, Congress can play an important role in promoting a positive outcome by participating actively in the legislatively mandated review process. Rather than pursuing the futile course of seeking a joint resolution of disapproval, members of Congress who see the potential benefits of the agreement but have concerns about its potential negative implications for nuclear proliferation should adopt the much more constructive approach of seeking a joint resolution of approval with understandings and conditions that can strengthen the agreement. By choosing that course, Congress can get mutually beneficial U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation underway while reinforcing non-proliferation guardrails and preserving Congress’ future oversight role.