President Trump’s Saudi nuclear deal reaches Congress amid proliferation concerns

President Donald Trump on Monday submitted a proposed civil nuclear energy deal with Saudi Arabia to Congress, starting a mandatory review period for the deal that would open the kingdom to U.S. nuclear technology.

U.S. officials confirmed the filing to MS NOW and said the Energy Department-led deal complies with nuclear law. The official said the president’s position has not changed and that the agreement will only move forward if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords.

The Wall Street Journal reported the filing on Tuesday.

The agreement, reached in July, allows U.S. companies to export civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. The 30-year agreement also calls for Saudi Arabia to build an AP1000 reactor. The project is worth tens of billions of dollars and will be co-owned by Canada-based Westinghouse. Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management.

Congress now has a 90-day continuous session to review the deal, and if there are no objections, it will go into effect. U.S. cooperation with foreign countries in the development of civil nuclear power generation requires such a review under the Atomic Energy Act.

President Trump has indicated that the terms of the deal would prevent Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium. There is no enrichment of materials! The president added in a social media post last month that the agreement is “entirely conditional on Saudi Arabia joining the highly respected and successful Abraham Accords.”

Some Democratic lawmakers and nonproliferation advocates have criticized the deal for not including a permanent ban on enrichment and reprocessing and for weakening standard controls on military use of technology. Instead, the agreement proposes a U.S.-built and operated enrichment facility that would be subject to a two-year feasibility study.

“Washington is right to strengthen its relationship with Riyadh, but it should not do so at the expense of effective nuclear non-proliferation standards,” Matthew Kroenig, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council, said in July.

Kroenig expects a two-year feasibility study to conclude that Saudi Arabia, like most countries with peaceful nuclear programs, should rely solely on imported fuel cycle services. “This would be a much better outcome than exporting bomb-making capacity to additional countries in an already volatile region,” he said.

The landmark agreement also comes at a time when the decades-old U.S.-led global nuclear order is already fraying, said Erin Dumbacher, Stanton senior fellow on nuclear security at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“This is a different approach than the strict nonproliferation measures that the United States has advocated in the past for nuclear exports,” said Dumbacher, who also worked in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

“Without action to limit the total number of nuclear-weapon states to just nine, we are on a slippery slope towards more states with nuclear material,” Dumbacher said. “More unchecked nuclear material around the world could lead to accidents, security risks and further proliferation.”

Riyadh has indicated it will not normalize relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized, a position that has hardened since the start of the Gaza war in 2023.

Saudi officials also said the kingdom would pursue nuclear weapons capabilities if Iran developed nuclear weapons.