Senators expect vote before December 13 on US-Saudi nuclear pact
The Senate is weighing a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that does not bar Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium
Published
US senators expect a vote before December 13 on the Trump administration's pact to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia.
The agreement, known as a 123 agreement, does not include a prohibition on Saudi enrichment of uranium. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said the deal is for construction of a civilian nuclear power plant and is not about enrichment, according to Foreign Policy. The Stimson Center's analysis found the pact instead sets up a pathway under which Saudi Arabia could seek prior consent to enrich uranium exclusively with US cooperation for at least 10 years, pending a joint enrichment and conversion study due within two years.
The administration submitted the pact using a never-used waiver under Section 1264 of the 2020 defense authorization act, since Saudi Arabia has not adopted enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, the Stimson Center found. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch and ranking member Jeanne Shaheen have said any such agreement should meet a 'gold standard' barring both uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, according to the Arms Control Association. The deal was formally transmitted to Congress, triggering a 90-day continuous review period; blocking it would require a joint resolution passed by two-thirds of both chambers to override a presidential veto, ABC News and the Jerusalem Post reported. Trump has since added a condition, not part of the original agreement, that the deal is contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, according to ABC News.
The vote fits a pattern of deepening security cooperation between Washington and Riyadh that has run through the Yemen crisis, including France's deployment at Yanbu and defense coordination among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. A congressional green light on nuclear technology sharing would mark a formal, longer-term US commitment to Saudi Arabia's strategic infrastructure at a moment when its energy and military assets are already under direct attack and receiving foreign military backing. The vote itself is a political and diplomatic marker rather than an operational one, since any technology transfer would take years to materialize, and it carries no clear near-term read-through for defense contractors given the absence of specific program or contract details in the pact.