By Asiimwe Angel
New documents shared with Congress last week reveal that the Trump administration’s civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia includes an explicit roadmap for uranium enrichment on Saudi soil—potentially reaching nearly 20 percent, a level far closer to weapons-grade than typical power-reactor fuel.
The 30-year “123 agreement,” signed in July 2026 by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, establishes a legal framework for U.S. companies to supply reactors, technology, and expertise for the kingdom’s planned nuclear power program. It also creates a two-year joint study on whether domestic enrichment makes commercial and national-security sense. If both sides agree to proceed, American firms would construct and operate a “black box” enrichment facility so that sensitive technology stays under U.S. control.
According to the text now before lawmakers, material transferred under the pact or produced with transferred equipment “may be enriched if the parties agree in writing” after the study. An initial cap of 5 percent uranium-235 could later rise to 20 percent following a further specialized review of high-assay low-enriched uranium considerations. Twenty percent enrichment is still classified as low-enriched uranium, but it substantially shortens the time and effort needed to reach the 90 percent-plus levels required for a nuclear weapon. Critics argue the arrangement falls short of longstanding U.S. nonproliferation standards. Unlike the 2009 “gold standard” deal with the United Arab Emirates, the Saudi pact does not require Riyadh to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol, which grants inspectors broader access to detect undeclared activities. Instead, the two countries negotiated a bilateral safeguards agreement that officials describe as developed “in cooperation with” the IAEA but that omits some of the more intrusive provisions Saudi officials had rejected as incompatible with sovereignty over holy sites and royal palaces.
Administration officials maintain that U.S. operational control of any enrichment plant, combined with the bilateral verification measures, will prevent diversion. They note the deal also bars Saudi Arabia from independently developing or acquiring enrichment or reprocessing technology from other suppliers for a decade if Washington objects after the study. Energy Secretary Wright has said enrichment, if it occurs at all, would be “many years down the road” and only if it “fits into our national security framework.”
The timing and terms have drawn sharp scrutiny. The United States has been at war with Iran in part to halt Tehran’s enrichment program and enforce intrusive inspections. Allowing a close regional partner a pathway to 20 percent enrichment without the same IAEA protocol used by more than 140 other countries, opponents say, risks setting a precedent that other states in the Middle East could demand. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has previously stated that Saudi Arabia would seek a nuclear weapon if Iran obtained one. Congress now has 90 legislative days to review the agreement. Either chamber can pass a resolution of disapproval to block it, though President Trump has also publicly tied the deal’s implementation to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel—a condition not written into the signed text. The combination of the 20 percent pathway and the absence of the Additional Protocol is expected to intensify opposition from lawmakers who view the package as a loosening of nonproliferation norms for commercial and strategic gain.
The documents make clear that enrichment is not automatic. It requires successive written agreements and studies. Yet the mere existence of a legally defined route to 20 percent enrichment inside the kingdom has already shifted the debate from whether Saudi Arabia should have nuclear power to how tightly that program can be constrained.
