President Donald Trump has approved a 30-year agreement to share civilian nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia. The deal would allow the kingdom to enrich uranium and process spent nuclear fuel on its own soil, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times on July 21, 2026, and confirmed by Reuters and Al Jazeera on July 22 (WSJ, Al Jazeera).

Uranium enrichment is the process of concentrating a specific form of uranium so it can fuel a nuclear reactor. The same process, taken further, can produce material for a nuclear weapon. Processing spent nuclear fuel means extracting usable material, including plutonium, from fuel that has already been used in a reactor. Plutonium can also be used to make weapons.

Trump is expected to send the agreement to Congress, where lawmakers will have about 90 days to object before the deal takes effect (Reuters). The deal is worth tens of billions of dollars and would let US companies like Westinghouse work in Saudi Arabia's nuclear sector (WSJ podcast). According to The Hill, Saudi Arabia could also process plutonium under the deal, following a joint US-Saudi study (The Hill).

In 2009, the United Arab Emirates signed a nuclear agreement with the US that became known as the "gold standard." Under that deal, the UAE agreed never to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel on its territory. The Saudi agreement falls below that standard because it permits both activities (Al Jazeera).

The Saudi deal may also not require something called the IAEA Additional Protocol. The IAEA is the United Nations agency that monitors nuclear programs around the world. The Additional Protocol gives its inspectors extra authority to check that nuclear material is not being secretly diverted for military use. Saudi Arabia did agree in 2023 to give UN inspectors broader powers, though it is unclear how that commitment relates to the Additional Protocol in the current agreement (WSJ).

Geopolitical analyst Michael Horowitz called the agreement "very consequential" because it falls below the gold standard and does not include the Additional Protocol (Al Jazeera). A Congressional Research Service report noted that the Trump administration has not released detailed plans for the cooperation and that Congress has concerns about a US-run enrichment operation in Saudi Arabia (CRS). As of July 22, the White House had issued no official statement on the deal.

The path to this agreement has been visible for months. During Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to the US in 2025, the two countries announced a framework for nuclear cooperation. The Department of Energy listed the civil nuclear deal, signed by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the Saudi energy minister, as one of the administration's achievements in its first year (DOE). In November 2025, Wright said uranium enrichment was not part of the deal (Reuters.

By February 2026, Reuters reported that the US was removing the requirements that Saudi Arabia not enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel from the proposed deal (Reuters). A May 2026 Reuters report confirmed that the pact lacked the strictest guardrails Democratic lawmakers had demanded (Reuters). CNN reported on July 18 that the administration was moving toward a deal permitting enrichment (CNN).

Under the Biden administration, nuclear cooperation talks with Saudi Arabia were tied to a larger package that included Saudi recognition of Israel, according to The New York Times. The Trump administration revived the discussions and dropped the Israel requirement. Israeli officials had previously worked with the Biden administration on a proposal for a US-run enrichment operation in Saudi Arabia as part of a potential normalization deal (WSJ). Netanyahu raised concerns with Trump about a US-Saudi nuclear reactor deal as far back as March 2018 (Axios).

The broader context here is a shift in how strictly the US limits what other countries can do with nuclear technology. For years, the UAE's gold standard agreement was the baseline: if you want US nuclear help, you do not enrich uranium or reprocess fuel yourself. By letting Saudi Arabia do both, the deal gives Riyadh capabilities the UAE gave up. If the Additional Protocol is indeed left out, international inspectors will have fewer tools to independently verify that Saudi Arabia's nuclear material stays in civilian use. Whether Congress accepts these terms within the 90-day review window, and whether Israel accepts the deal being separated from normalization, are the key questions that will shape whether this agreement survives. The precedent it sets for other countries that might want similar terms is something lawmakers will also have to consider.