President Donald Trump has approved a 30-year agreement that lets American companies help Saudi Arabia build up a civilian nuclear energy program. The deal was confirmed by US officials on July 22–23, 2026, and announced by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi counterparts. The administration did not release many details right away. Trump did not hold a signing ceremony. Instead, he attended a ceremony for four US service members killed in Iran, then held a rally in Georgia where he said his policies were making the Middle East more stable than ever.

The most controversial part of the deal involves uranium enrichment. Uranium enrichment means concentrating a type of uranium so it can fuel nuclear reactors. The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal could allow this process to happen inside Saudi Arabia. Reuters reported that the administration also supports letting Saudi Arabia reprocess spent nuclear fuel, meaning recycling used reactor fuel. Both of these processes are sensitive because they are also steps that can lead to building nuclear weapons. Energy Secretary Wright said the pact would "uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation" and argued it would boost the American economy and strengthen national security. BBC

The deal has upset Israel. The New York Times reported on July 22 that the agreement seems to leave Israel out entirely, rather than requiring Saudi Arabia to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel as a condition for getting nuclear cooperation. The Times of Israel confirmed the deal and noted Israeli alarm. This separation of nuclear cooperation from Israeli relations did not happen overnight. As early as May 2025, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel before moving forward on nuclear talks. By then, Saudi-Israeli relations had already stalled because of the Gaza conflict, and Trump's visit to Riyadh had focused on investments, arms deals, and AI collaborations rather than Israeli normalization.

Israeli leaders have spoken out directly. Avigdor Lieberman, a member of Israel's parliament and a former defense minister, said a civilian nuclear program in Saudi Arabia would lead to a "mad arms race across the entire Middle East." BBC

In Washington, members of Congress are also pushing back. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California called it a "giveaway to the Saudis" and told the BBC it would "fuel further ambitions from Iran" and "further destabilise the region with Israel." BBC

The path to this agreement goes back across two presidencies. In May 2024, Reuters reported that the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia were working on a deal that included US security guarantees and civilian nuclear assistance. By May 2025, the Trump administration said it was "very excited" about Saudi Arabia developing its own civil nuclear program with US help, according to the Associated Press. In November 2025, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the US with defence, AI, and nuclear issues on the agenda, per Reuters. The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration has been involved throughout. The US and Saudi Arabia had previously outlined cooperation on civil nuclear energy, including safety, security, and nonproliferation programs, as far back as May 2025.

The broader context here is a major shift in how the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel relate to each other. Under President Biden, the plan was to tie Saudi nuclear cooperation to Saudi Arabia officially recognizing Israel and to a mutual defense treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration has cut that link. It is giving Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation without requiring it to recognize Israel and without giving Israel a formal role in the agreement. This is a deliberate choice. It shows that the administration values the direct US-Saudi commercial and strategic relationship more than the three-way arrangement previous negotiators pursued.

For experts who study the spread of nuclear technology, the enrichment provisions are the main worry. The US has a standard type of agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation called a Section 123 agreement. The strongest version of this kind of agreement bars the country from enriching uranium or reprocessing fuel at all, as in a deal the US made with the United Arab Emirates. Allowing enrichment, even with monitoring, puts this new pact in a looser category than the UAE deal and gives Saudi Arabia something it has wanted for a long time: the ability to produce its own reactor fuel from start to finish. Whether the government's stated commitment to nonproliferation can adequately reduce the risks of facilities that can serve both civilian and military purposes is the question Congress will now press.

The deal also comes during a period of high tension in the region. Trump's attendance at the ceremony for service members killed in Iran reflects an active conflict with Tehran even as the administration pushes forward a pact that critics say will provoke Iran to respond. The administration's argument that the deal makes the region more stable and the critics' argument that it speeds up an arms competition are not just different opinions. They reflect genuinely different views of how the spread of nuclear technology affects countries' behavior in the Gulf. Because the deal does not include Israeli normalization as a condition, it cannot be defended as part of a broader effort to bring the region together, which was the reasoning that made earlier versions of US-Saudi nuclear talks acceptable to skeptics.