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On Aug. 24, 2026, the Trump administration transmitted the text of the U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement to Congress. By doing so, the administration triggered the 90-day congressional review process described in the Atomic Energy Act and relaunched a debate about the right approach to international nuclear commerce.

The United States and Saudi Arabia jointly announced a deal in Nov. 2025 and signed the final text in July 2026. President Donald Trump held up its transmission to Congress over the issue of whether Saudi Arabia would normalize its relations with Israel, a topic that — according to the White House — could still lead to this agreement being shelved. But, setting this aside, there is still a lot to consider and discuss about the terms of the nuclear deal itself.

All told, the agreement submitted to Congress is much improved over what was leaked to and reported in the press, though perhaps this was an exercise of media management: allowing the actual agreement to exceed the low expectations created by its preceding press. There remain issues with the text — such as how to handle the risk of Saudi cheating and broader concerns of precedent — but the actual deal does have several worthwhile provisions that reduce the intrinsic risk of nuclear trade.

A Better Text Than Expected

“I considered, when my analysis was published by War on the Rocks on July 29, that Congress should probably seek amendments to fix some of the nonproliferation problems reported. Though noting that the authoritative text was not yet available, I concluded that there was a risk of the Saudis developing advanced nuclear capabilities — the so-called “nuclear fuel cycle,” which supports the production of nuclear materials for power or weapons — without the requisite international inspections.” Importantly, this is a risk that would exist for any non-nuclear weapon state that does not already possess these capabilities; that the country involved in this case is Saudi Arabia should not and does not affect the evaluation of an agreement that would mark a deviation from the approach taken by the United States toward nuclear cooperation agreements with countries around the world for decades.

Some of this risk remains but has been tempered by what’s in the text. Four elements are important to consider in this context.

First, the uranium enrichment issue is managed reasonably well. Press accounts had reported that the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed to conduct a study in uranium enrichment and, depending on its conclusions, the Saudis might pursue enrichment either immediately in collaboration with the United States or, after a moratorium, through other partners or alone. The official text is better. The study is intended to consider not only the economic issues around enrichment but also how Saudi enrichment would affect U.S. national interests and the “risk of proliferation.”

Moreover, this study’s focus will not be limited to just uranium enrichment but will include uranium conversion, the step in the process before enrichment. Importantly, this means that the Saudis will not have the ability to produce large quantities of feed material for enrichment that could also support clandestine projects. For those who remember the early days of the Iran nuclear issue, it was uranium conversion work that originally set off the march to the U.N. Security Council in Aug. 2005. The Saudis also agreed that, in any event, they would not exceed 5 percent uranium enrichment unless agreed to by the United States pursuant to a separate study. When subject to verification, this will keep Saudi Arabia a reasonable distance away from being able to produce weapons-usable material at any enrichment plant that might be constructed.

Second, the United States explicitly prohibits the transfer of what’s known as restricted data in the agreement, which is defined in the Atomic Energy Act as:

all data concerning design, manufacture, or utilization of atomic weapons; the production of special nuclear material; or the use of special nuclear material in the production of energy, but shall not include data declassified or removed from the restricted data category…

This language effectively creates a firm legal barrier on what kind of information can be transferred to the Saudis in general, even if uranium enrichment is eventually authorized — and it is highly unlikely that sensitive information about the process for enriching uranium will ever be declassified or removed from the restricted data category. Section 144 of the Atomic Energy Act does provide a process for the transfer of restricted data, but only “provided [that] the cooperation is undertaken pursuant to an agreement entered into in accordance with section [123]…” This language is also how the agreement stipulates the commitment that any transfer would be “blackboxed,” as it would be illegal for the United States or its entities to provide any information to the Saudis about how enrichment might actually work.

Third, the use of U.S. exclusivity throughout the agreement helps to condition the entire agreement on U.S. consent, effectively granting the United States a veto over Saudi nuclear projects. From studies to the terms governing which sites will house nuclear facilities, the United States will play an inextricable role in the nuclear program the Saudis are building. Cheating could still be an issue but what constitutes cheating is now broader, involving both international access rights as well as disclosures to the United States.

Fourth, although press reports accurately noted that the Saudis refused to accept the Additional Protocol, the enhanced inspection regime developed after the experiences of Iraq and North Korea in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Saudis did accept important parts of the protocol through a bilateral agreement with the United States. Those provisions appear on page 27 of the text submitted to Congress. Moreover, they accepted that the International Atomic Energy Agency will be responsible for implementing that agreement. This reflects Saudi Arabia’s slow but steady move toward greater transparency and cooperation with the IAEA over the last few decades..

It took the Saudis until 2009 to conclude their comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and even then, the Saudis sought to reduce their inspection burden by applying a “Small Quantities Protocol” instead. A Small Quantities Protocol effectively tries to excuse countries from inspections because they have insufficient nuclear material in the country to justify normal presence of the agency. The Saudis only gave up this Small Quantities Protocol in 2024. The IAEA will receive declarations from the Saudis on their nuclear activities, including research and development, that go beyond the terms of the comprehensive safeguards agreement and well beyond the Small Quantities Protocol. The Saudis also accepted short-notice inspections and the standard that the IAEA should be able to determine the “correctness and completeness” of Saudi declarations.

The result of these four points — in addition to other, smaller parts of the agreement text — is a deal that is more favorable on nonproliferation grounds than originally feared.

But Issues Remain

This is not to say that there are no problems with the agreement or its construct. Three jump out.

First, although the agreement includes important parts of the Additional Protocol, it is still not the Additional Protocol, which was designed to be a fully integrated whole of overlapping declarations, obligations, and inspection rights. Whereas the Additional Protocol establishes a rule that countries will grant access to any site throughout a country, the bilateral safeguards agreement in this text limits access to “covered sites” under Article 3. This may not be an issue in practice because the Saudis agree only to conduct sensitive nuclear activities on covered sites and exclusively in cooperation with the United States, but it is still an important difference, at least in theory. If the Saudis comply with the terms, then — as the bilateral safeguards agreement itself notes — the International Atomic Energy Agency ought to be able to come to some judgment as to the completeness of Saudi declarations.

The problem is if the Saudis don’t comply at some future time.

But when confronting countries with undeclared nuclear activities, other tools can address the problem. Under the existing Saudi agreement with the IAEA, the Saudis already accept the concept of a “special inspection” request, through which the IAEA can insist on access to a site to address an “essential and urgent” request. Under that agreement, the IAEA can also report the Saudis to the U.N. Security Council if they are found to be violating their obligations, which would include a failure to declare sensitive nuclear facilities. . Notably, it was under this type of agreement — not the Additional Protocol — that Iran was found to be in noncompliance with its obligations and reported to the U.N. Security Council in 2005 to 2006.

Still, the Additional Protocol exists to give the International Atomic Energy Agency more tools, and it is disconcerting that the United States and Saudi Arabia would agree to limit the scope of inspection work in this agreement. This limitation may make it harder for the International Atomic Energy Agency in the future to reach a broader conclusion about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities in the country, even if the International Atomic Energy Agency can verify what the Saudis have told them about. This is a distinction with potentially significant consequences.

Second, the entire agreement hinges on U.S. exclusivity in working with the Saudis on their nuclear program and the Saudis valuing that sufficiently to not want to cheat. There are provisions in U.S. law already to impose sanctions on a country that develops a clandestine nuclear fuel cycle program and these include the mandatory cutoff of foreign aid and military sales to those who violate its terms. But national security exceptions and waivers also exist for these provisions and, in the case of Pakistan, the United States used them in 1981 following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. It is possible the Saudis would be sufficiently worried about the risk of losing their nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States and the possibility of these sorts of sanctions being imposed, but they could also take a different view. Absent Saudi adherence to exclusivity, some of the valuable nonproliferation elements of this agreement would be lost.

Third, there are still issues with precedent. In a way, the proposed U.S.-Saudi agreement is an improvement over the status quo. Currently, under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Saudis are free to build a uranium enrichment plant if they wish and would not face any consequences, provided that they did so in conformity with the treaty. The Saudis are not legally obliged to implement the Additional Protocol, even under the treaty, a fact acknowledged by International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi in his broadly positive comments about the bilateral safeguards text. As such, if other countries — such as Russia or China — were to insist on the same standards as what is in the U.S.-Saudi agreement, then it is not intrinsically worse than a status quo arrangement in which only the terms of the pre-Additional Protocol inspector arrangements were accepted.

However, even with the International Atomic Energy Agency administering the inspections of this deal, it is fraught. The United States and Saudi Arabia have decided to remove parts of the Additional Protocol from the equation. Why could others not seek to do the same? The United States and Saudi Arabia have agreed to consider a future uranium enrichment program in Saudi Arabia based not only on economic grounds, but also their bilateral national interests. A future Russian or Chinese deal could likewise do the same, but include one of those interests: the national security imperative of facilitating uranium enrichment work in a U.S. adversary state. The United States might quibble in those circumstances with the specifics, but the idea behind broad principles — like the importance of providing nuclear trade only in the context of enhanced inspections — is that they provide protection from bad-faith arguments. This agreement opens the door to those arguments.

This agreement, if approved, may also prompt the United Arab Emirates to seek a revision to the terms of its 2009 nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, referred to at the time as the “gold standard” because the United Arab Emirates agreed to foreswear enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. The United Arab Emirates reserved the right to reconsider this concession if another country in the region received more favorable treatment, and the United Arab Emirates believe that it too deserves the benefit of a U.S.-United Arab Emirates uranium conversion and enrichment study. Were the United States, through this process, to agree to support the Emiratis’ development of these elements of a nuclear fuel cycle, the agreement could directly enable the proliferation of sensitive capabilities that the United Arab Emirates once renounced.

What To Do

Ultimately, the problem with the “gold standard” agreement is that no one else was prepared to accept it, limiting the reach of U.S. nuclear cooperation and the attendant nonproliferation benefits that could come even from something less than the U.S.-United Arab Emirates agreement’s lofty heights. It is this question that Congress should consider when evaluating whether to try to block the U.S.-Saudi agreement: whether what’s been obtained is an improvement over the status quo, notwithstanding the risks, and what it can do to strengthen the agreement and support its implementation in the likely event it moves forward. This is an important element because, although Congress could theoretically block the agreement, it is likely that there are enough votes in favor of it to allow the president to bring it into force.

The text itself is an improvement over what was reported but would also constitute an improvement over the status quo, if implemented fully. Congress should interrogate the Trump administration carefully over the terms of the deal, including the terms of the side letters acknowledged in the text but not made public, and any commitments made by the two parties. Congress should also carefully examine the classified Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement with which it was provided, and ensure that it understands the full scope of any concerns that the classified document might discuss. For example, the unclassified text nods to Saudi officials’ discussion of a willingness to pursue nuclear weapons should Iran acquire them. The classified text hopefully includes specific information about the nature of this threat and gives Congress the ability to understand Saudi capabilities in this regard.

Assuming there are no red flags in these confidential documents or indications of a contradiction with what is in the text, then the agreement can be allowed to enter into force. But additional provisions and conditions can be adopted alongside the agreement.

First, Congress should reinforce that current law would, among other things, prohibit any military exports to a country found to be in violation of a nuclear-related agreement with the United States. Congress should also expand the terms of these sanctions to include asset freezes and other measures designed to impose significant economic harm on Saudi Arabia in the event of violations, while limiting the use of waivers. The Trump administration should be required to report on the implementation of this agreement regularly and required in particular to report any violations of its terms within a short timeframe. Saudi Arabia has been a partner of the United States for decades and, hopefully, such provisions will prove unnecessary. But, if the United States is to expand the aperture for how it conducts nuclear commerce, it should establish a clear precedent now as to how it will respond to cheating.

Second, Congress should mandate the United States to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors to establish expedited procedures for special inspections to be authorized should the International Atomic Energy Agency be in receipt of credible allegations of Saudi violations of the terms of its existing agreement or this new one. The International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors should, in turn, accept those procedures and incorporate them into consideration of any nuclear cooperation agreement that might come forward that does not include the use of the Additional Protocol. Indeed, in an ideal world, the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors would generally seek to improve the standing of its inspectors to conduct such inspections regardless of whether a nuclear cooperation agreement is involved. Recent history, both the Iran case and what is now known about Syria’s nuclear violations, suggest that improved use of the special inspection right granted to the International Atomic Energy Agency in all of its normal agreements would be beneficial.

Third, the United States should continue to seek the adoption of the Additional Protocol and strengthened international inspection authorities in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Nothing in this agreement precludes seeking such an outcome and it should remain a U.S. priority.

Fourth, the United States should have an explicit conversation with the Saudis about expectations regarding what would happen should the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons. This is a fraught topic, given that every president for the last three decades has sworn to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But it is also the most likely precipitating factor that could lead the Saudis to want to pursue their own nuclear weapons capability, perhaps utilizing technologies such as uranium enrichment. The entire concept behind a Section 123 agreement with a non-nuclear weapon state is that it should provide access to the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy and technology without creating a risk of proliferation. Nowhere in the provided text is there an acceptance that Iran’s nuclear status would shift this basic parameter for U.S. cooperation.

The United States should make clear that, if despite its best efforts, Iran’s nuclear program continues to be both a threat for nuclear weapons production or is realized in weapons acquisition, the United States would expect the Saudis to honor their commitments under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Congress should make its similar expectations on this point clear.

The U.S.-Saudi agreement is better than expected. If it performs as promised, its provisions of exclusivity will provide benefits to the U.S. nuclear industry and lock Russia and China out of a potentially lucrative market that could have attendant political and security implications long term, especially in a Middle East where nuclear proliferation remains a serious threat. The U.S.-Saudi agreement is also innovative and imaginative, a credit to creative negotiations to unlock an issue that has been difficult for multiple administrations. As such, it may also mark out a future path for U.S. nuclear cooperation that sidesteps the positive, but overly aggressive, terms of the United Arab Emirates “gold standard” agreement. Additional provisions to ensure its effectiveness are not a mark against it, but an indication of how important it is to ensure that the gains made in this agreement’s text are preserved in its application.

Richard Nephew is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the Bernstein adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has served in multiple positions in the U.S. government, including as deputy special envoy for Iran under President Joseph Biden.

Image: IAEA Imagebank via Wikimedia Commons