President Donald Trump will seek Congressional approval for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear energy pact, Reuters reported on July 22, 2026. The agreement is structured as a "123 agreement" — a term drawn from Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which governs how the U.S. shares nuclear technology with other countries. If approved, it would allow American firms to help Saudi Arabia build nuclear power plants and compete for those contracts.

The pact omits a protocol for International Atomic Energy Agency oversight, according to Reuters, which cited anonymous sources. The IAEA is the UN body responsible for verifying that countries use nuclear material for peaceful purposes. Without that oversight mechanism in the agreement, the deal falls outside the strictest nonproliferation framework that Democratic lawmakers had urged the administration to adopt. Reuters reported in May 2026 that a proposed version of the pact lacked those guardrails, and the final text submitted to Congress retains that gap.

The agreement's roots trace to November 2025, when the White House published a fact sheet announcing that the United States and Saudi Arabia had signed a Joint Declaration on the Completion of Negotiations on Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation. The U.S. Department of Energy confirmed the deal the same day, with the U.S. Energy Secretary and Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister as signatories. A Memorandum of Understanding between the two governments concerning cooperation in nuclear energy was also published on the DOE website. A separate DOE article from May 2025 had already outlined cooperation areas including safety, security, and nonproliferation programs.

AP News reported that Trump approved a civil nuclear cooperation agreement that could potentially provide Saudi Arabia with uranium enrichment capabilities. Enrichment is the process of concentrating uranium to levels usable in reactors — or, at much higher levels, in weapons. That prospect sits at the center of the nonproliferation debate: a 123 agreement technically permits enrichment only under conditions Congress and the executive branch negotiate, and the omission of an IAEA oversight protocol narrows the external verification architecture. The New York Times reported on July 21, 2026 that Trump separated the nuclear cooperation proposal from any demand that Saudi Arabia recognize Israel. That decoupling removed a condition that had linked civil nuclear cooperation to the broader normalization track between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Times also reported that the expected deal raised concerns in Israel, where officials have long viewed Saudi nuclear advancement through a regional security lens. Those concerns are not new: in August 2020, the Times reported that U.S. intelligence agencies were scrutinizing Saudi Arabia's efforts to build up its ability to produce nuclear fuel.

Under the Atomic Energy Act, a 123 agreement must lie before Congress for a review period. Congress can vote to disapprove the agreement, though doing so requires overcoming procedural and political thresholds. The pact's submission to Congress triggers that review.

The broader context here is a years-long Saudi effort to establish an indigenous nuclear energy capacity, driven by domestic electricity demand and a stated intent to diversify its energy mix away from oil and gas. Riyadh has pursued nuclear cooperation with multiple partners, but a U.S. 123 agreement carries unique weight because it unlocks access to American reactor technology and nuclear supply chains. For U.S. industry, the commercial stakes are direct: the Saudi nuclear power plant market represents a multi-decade procurement opportunity.

The nonproliferation gap, however, is where the agreement's strategic consequences are likely to be felt most acutely. Saudi Arabia's current safeguards arrangement with the IAEA covers only a single facility and does not include the Additional Protocol — a voluntary agreement that grants the agency expanded inspection rights. A 123 agreement without an embedded IAEA oversight protocol leaves verification to bilateral U.S.-Saudi mechanisms rather than multilateral institutional ones. Critics in Congress are likely to focus on whether those bilateral tools are sufficient to detect and deter diversion toward a weapons program, particularly given the kingdom's stated interest in matching Iran's enrichment capabilities.

The decoupling from Israel normalization also alters the diplomatic calculus. Previous U.S. administrations and outside analysts had treated Saudi-Israeli normalization as a potential vehicle for locking in nonproliferation commitments. By separating the two tracks, the administration has removed normalization as a leverage point and left the nuclear file to stand on its own merits in the Congressional review.

What Congress does next will determine whether the pact takes effect. If no resolution of disapproval passes, the agreement enters into force. If lawmakers move to block it, the administration faces a choice between renegotiating terms or letting the deal lapse. Either outcome will shape not only the U.S.-Saudi bilateral relationship but the regional nuclear landscape across the Gulf.