For the first time, the United States could transfer enrichment technology to a state without nuclear weapons. The U.S.–Saudi Nuclear Cooperation Agreement now under review in Congress would open that door. It illustrates how Washington is balancing security, commerce, and power politics in its foreign nuclear policy. The 30-year joint program underscores how the United States is still striving to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation while sustaining its security posture and revitalizing U.S. nuclear exports. Even so, Congress should add conditions to dampen the agreement’s potential to weaken global nonproliferation standards in exchange for strategic and commercial access to Riyadh.
For decades, the United States has pursued extensive foreign nuclear cooperation to secure diplomatic influence, achieve commercial profits, and discourage nuclear weapons proliferation. The goal was to spread peaceful nuclear energy without spreading nuclear weapons. Washington supplied other countries with nuclear materials and technologies under Section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and related legislation, policies, and precedents. These instruments regularly require partners to apply the full-scope safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and eschew uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing without advance U.S. approval. A country can use these sensitive nuclear technologies to manufacture fissile material for nuclear weapons as well as fuel for nuclear reactors. Since most countries with nuclear activities relied on U.S. nuclear materials and technologies, the United States enjoyed substantial leverage over their programs.
For decades, the United States has pursued extensive foreign nuclear cooperation to secure diplomatic influence, achieve commercial profits, and discourage nuclear weapons proliferation
Why Washington Is Bending the Rules
In the past, other countries transferring nuclear technologies and know-how would impose similarly rigorous requirements through coordinated export controls, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and related mechanisms. But growing international competition, especially from Asian suppliers, has been driving Washington to allow privileged partners to engage in a broader range of nuclear activities to boost sales. For example, the United States and other countries relaxed nonproliferation standards to sell nuclear technologies to India, which had acquired nuclear weapons outside the established nuclear nonproliferation regime.
The Saudi–U.S. agreement, which envisages U.S. companies building nuclear power plants in the Kingdom and jointly approving suppliers of their reactor fuel, also diverges from past U.S. standards. For example, the proposed text does not require that the Kingdom accede to the IAEA Additional Protocol (AP). The Protocol gives the Agency widespread access to verify that the host country has no undeclared nuclear programs. Saudi Arabia has long rejected U.S. and other entreaties to accede to the AP. Instead, the agreement provides for a customized Bilateral Safeguards Agreement. Under it, the IAEA and the United States would apply AP-like verification standards only to sites where Saudi–U.S. nuclear activities occur.
More controversially, the agreement marks the first time that the United States could transfer sensitive nuclear technologies to a non-nuclear-weapon state. The text provides for a two-year Joint Enrichment and Conversion Study. The parties will assess the commercial and nonproliferation considerations of a Saudi-based facility to enrich uranium to the five-percent level used by commercial reactors. If the feasibility study reaches a favorable conclusion, then the United States could transfer enrichment and related technologies. According to media reports, Washington would contain any such facility within a novel “black box” arrangement. This approach aims to deny the host government access to sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle information, such as designs for advanced uranium centrifuges. If the study does not support such a U.S.-built facility, then Saudi Arabia can pursue its own enrichment program, perhaps with other partners, after ten years.
Washington would contain any such facility within a novel “black box” arrangement. This approach aims to deny the host government access to sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle information, such as designs for advanced uranium centrifuges
The Trump administration has cited commercial, diplomatic, and national considerations to justify waiving these requirements in the Saudi case, without indicating it would make similar adjustments for other countries. Essentially, administration officials argue that Saudi Arabia is such a strategically important and commercially valuable partner that it warrants relaxing previous nonproliferation standards for Riyadh. They maintain that the agreement would strengthen U.S. nuclear exports, keep Washington as Saudi Arabia’s leading partner, and enhance U.S. knowledge of the Kingdom’s nuclear activities. Conversely, they insist that rejecting the Saudi demands would further strain already tense Saudi–U.S. ties and encourage Riyadh to seek alternative partners like China and Russia. In their view, these countries could make the concessions the Kingdom demands and thereby weaken both nonproliferation standards and U.S. influence.
What Washington Gains and Risks
The immediate nonproliferation risks are minimal since Saudi Arabia lacks a large nuclear program, will not have a commercial reactor for many years, and accepts standard IAEA comprehensive safeguards. It is true that Saudi leaders have made statements that, if Iran develops nuclear weapons, the Kingdom will soon follow. For reasons of diplomatic status and national security, Saudi Arabia also wants to match Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But this declaratory policy aims to deter Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons. It seeks to force Iranian leaders to understand that their choice is not between acquiring and not acquiring nuclear weapons. Rather, the choice is whether to find themselves in a neighborhood of nuclear weapons states that could attack each other with only a few minutes’ warning. U.S. officials have pursued a similar strategy in Northeast Asia, warning Chinese interlocutors that South Korea and Japan might pursue nuclear weapons if North Korea continued its nuclear weapons program.
However, the Saudi government has grandiose ambitions to develop all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. The goal is to meet domestic requirements, such as for water desalination, and to establish the Kingdom as a leading regional supplier of reactor fuel. The proposed “black box” is an unproven concept for preventing a foreign-run enrichment facility from helping improve a country’s proliferation potential. But the host country’s experts can acquire knowledge by observing the facility’s operations, monitoring its logistical chains, and interacting with its personnel. They can then apply these insights to an indigenous program not assuredly accessible to the IAEA. A future host government could also try to nationalize and seize the facility.
Meanwhile, the potential U.S. financial gains from the deal may be overstated. The agreement reportedly contains various “buy America” and non-U.S. exclusivity clauses in which the Kingdom agrees to privilege U.S. suppliers of nuclear technology and services. But if Saudi Arabia builds an indigenous enrichment facility, it could make its own fuel. Even if Saudi Arabia sought only U.S.-made fuel, the United States faces enormous challenges producing sufficient enriched uranium for its domestic industry, let alone for export. Though the United States controversially relaxed its nuclear export requirements regarding India two decades ago, expectations that India would purchase U.S. reactors and other nuclear services never panned out. The same disappointment may await U.S. companies in the Saudi market.
Though the United States controversially relaxed its nuclear export requirements regarding India two decades ago, expectations that India would purchase U.S. reactors and other nuclear services never panned out
Beyond the Saudi case, the nonproliferation implications grow. If Congress approves the U.S.–Saudi Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and other existing partners could plausibly demand similarly relaxed terms and special deals. Other major nuclear suppliers could relax their export standards to better compete with the United States. For example, Russia may cease demanding that countries buying Russian-made reactors use and return Russian-made fuel rods. These developments would decrease pressure on Iran and other potential nuclear weapons aspirants to renounce sensitive nuclear technologies or adhere to the Additional Protocol.
What Congress Can Still Do
Although members of Congress have raised these and other concerns, they lack the two-thirds supermajority needed to derail the agreement in the face of a probable presidential veto. But Congress can separately mandate additional conditions for any U.S. enrichment technology transfers, as members did with the 1985 U.S. agreement with China. For example, they could extend the joint study to three or four years so that the Iranian situation becomes clearer and the next U.S. administration can contribute to this assessment.
Washington can best demand revisions now since U.S. bargaining leverage will decline as the parties execute the agreement. As with other nuclear partners, the United States can pair these additional requirements with compensatory measures, such as continuing arms sales and high-tech cooperation beyond the nuclear sector. Washington can also support Riyadh’s efforts to expand its security partners through mechanisms such as the Mecca Pact with Pakistan and Turkey.
As a long-term goal, U.S. diplomats should continue to advocate a pooled enrichment program, under international supervision, for Middle Eastern countries pursuing nuclear energy. Such a regional consortium could provide reactor fuel at lower cost and with less proliferation risk than competing national enrichment programs with inherent military potential. Offering it initially as a supplement rather than a replacement could help overcome resistance to the proposal. The existing IAEA Low Enriched Uranium Bank in Kazakhstan could provide the foundation for a region-wide program.
Where the Deal Could Lead
No specific line separates a good 30-year agreement from a bad one. The balance between its goals and risks will depend on how the parties execute it and on future developments. If Saudi Arabia fully executes the agreement, with the proposed augmentations, this outcome would create the best plausible scenario for the United States and the global nonproliferation regime. The agreement would bind the Saudi and U.S. nuclear programs for decades, strengthen the Kingdom’s proliferation safeguards, and help Saudi Arabia benefit from civilian nuclear energy.
A more likely alternative would be for other U.S. nuclear partners, especially the UAE and South Korea, to demand and receive similarly lenient terms. This is especially likely if Congress adopts the current text without improvements. Other nuclear suppliers would match the U.S. concessions to remain competitive. In effect, the Saudi case would establish a new precedent and standard for future nuclear cooperation programs with the United States.
An improbable but conceivable outcome would be if Congress or the Kingdom rejected the finalized Saudi–U.S. agreement outright. Though not without risk, even that shock, in isolation, is unlikely to wreck the Saudi–U.S. partnership. Several factors would likely sustain robust Saudi–U.S. economic and security cooperation. These include mutual interests, lack of alternatives, the embryonic state of the Kingdom’s nuclear program, the volatile regional security environment, and the competing geopolitical considerations constraining potential alternative partners. For instance, Riyadh needs Washington’s help against Iran and its regional proxies and wants Congress to approve the proposed F-35 sale. In September, the Iran-backed Houthis pushed down Yemen’s Red Sea coast to the Bab el-Mandeb and fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia, including at Riyadh. The risk would increase, though, if major additional shocks occurred, such as Iran’s developing nuclear weapons or achieving control over commercial navigation in the Gulf.
The proposed U.S.–Saudi Nuclear Cooperation Agreement highlights how rival commercial nuclear suppliers and fractured great power security collaboration have eroded Washington’s nonproliferation leverage. The terms granted to Riyadh most likely will not remain a Saudi exception. In this increasingly contested landscape, U.S. policymakers face the uncomfortable choice of further diluting fraying gold-standard nonproliferation norms or risking the loss of sizeable business and strategic influence. In cases like Saudi Arabia, they must constantly balance economic opportunities, alliance dynamics, and security goals. The resulting patchwork of bespoke solutions is unsatisfactory but unavoidable.
The terms granted to Riyadh most likely will not remain a Saudi exception. In this increasingly contested landscape, U.S. policymakers face the uncomfortable choice of further diluting fraying gold-standard nonproliferation norms or risking the loss of sizeable business and strategic influence
