Agadir – US President Donald Trump has sent Congress a proposed civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, while maintaining that the pact will only take effect if Riyadh agrees to normalize relations with Israel.
A US administration official told Reuters on Tuesday that the agreement, reached in July, was submitted to Congress on Monday. The pact would allow US companies to export civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
“The president’s position has not changed that the agreement will only move forward if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords,” the official said.
The agreement provides for the construction of AP1000 nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, in a project expected to be worth tens of billions of dollars.
Trump previously said that Saudi Arabia’s participation in the Abraham Accords would be a condition for the nuclear agreement to take effect.
The accords, facilitated by the US during Trump’s first term, established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in 2020 and 2021.
Former US President Joe Biden also sought a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia and explored linking it to normalization between Riyadh and Israel.
Diplomatic efforts toward Saudi-Israeli normalization gained momentum in 2023, but the outbreak of the bloody genocide in Gaza in October of that year altered the negotiations.
Saudi Arabia has since maintained that it would require an irreversible pathway toward the establishment of a Palestinian state before recognizing Israel.
The agreement has also drawn criticism from some Democratic lawmakers and nuclear nonproliferation advocates because it does not explicitly prevent Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or reprocessing nuclear waste.
Both activities can have civilian applications but can also provide pathways toward developing nuclear weapons.
The United Arab Emirates accepted restrictions on uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing in its 2009 civil nuclear agreement with Washington, provisions often described as the “gold standard” for US nuclear cooperation agreements.
The Trump administration has said the Saudi agreement includes the nonproliferation measures required under US law.
However, Henry Sokolski, head of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said the congressional review could allow the agreement to advance without Saudi Arabia accepting additional restrictions or normalizing relations with Israel.
“This is hardly ideal if you’re serious about no enrichment and recognition of Israel,” Sokolski told Reuters.
