President Trump's Energy Department signed a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday that could for the first time allow a foreign country to enrich uranium on its own soil using U.S. technology, dropping a longstanding demand that Riyadh recognize Israel and sending the pact to Congress for review under the Atomic Energy Act.
The deal, sealed by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman as U.S. forces bombed Iran for an 11th consecutive night, jettisons two conditions that had held up a Saudi accord for years: normalization with Israel, and the ban on host-country enrichment that Washington set with the United Arab Emirates in 2009. It opens a multibillion-dollar market to Westinghouse, Bechtel and other American nuclear vendors, and raises the prospect that the top OPEC oil producer could one day hold the fuel cycle needed for a weapon.
The terms
The Energy Department described the pair of agreements — one on cooperation, one on bilateral safeguards — as documents that "lay the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership that advances several priority economic and strategic objectives, including nuclear nonproliferation." Text of the deal was not released. U.S. media reports say Saudi Arabia could enrich uranium at a U.S.-built facility on its own territory, a departure from the 2009 U.S.-U.A.E. agreement, under which the emirates do not produce their own fuel and accept a series of additional restrictions.
The Saudi government called the pact "an extension of existing co-operation between the two countries in the energy sector," dating its origins to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to Washington last November.
The Israel precondition
Trump did not require the crown prince to grant diplomatic recognition to Israel, a condition previous U.S. administrations had made central to any Saudi civil-nuclear deal. Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat said his country "can manage it" if Saudi Arabia acquired nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Israel is widely believed to hold nuclear weapons but neither confirms nor denies it.
The crown prince told CBS News in 2018 that Saudi Arabia was not planning to acquire a nuclear weapon but that "without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible."
The enrichment question
Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East program at the U.S.-based Defense Priorities think tank, said allowing on-soil enrichment would be "quite shocking." "The US has never done that before. We have never helped another country enrich on their own soil," she told the BBC, warning that "if you can produce your own nuclear fuel, you become a much bigger risk" for building weapons.
Wright rebutted such concerns. "Rest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world's best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States," he said. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, "The US is not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation."
The commercial stakes
The pact clears Westinghouse, Bechtel, BWXT and Centrus to sell sensitive nuclear equipment to Riyadh, said Jonathan Hinze, president of nuclear-fuel research firm UxC. "Without this kind of a nuclear trade agreement, U.S. nuclear companies would remain shut out of the market," Hinze told CNBC, adding that Saudi Arabia "would likely go with nuclear technology and supplies from other countries, like France, Russia, or China." Westinghouse Chief Executive Dan Sumner called the deal a "landmark step" for U.S. industry.
Saudi Arabia currently generates almost all of its electricity from fossil fuels — about 60 percent from natural gas and 40 percent from oil, according to the International Energy Agency — and is the largest oil producer in OPEC.
Congress and dissent
The agreement now goes to Congress, which reviews civilian nuclear cooperation pacts with foreign governments under the Atomic Energy Act. Trump's Republican Party controls both chambers, and opponents "do not appear to have the votes needed to block it," BBC News reported.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on social media the deal "will set off a nuclear race in the region, further disincentivizing Iran from limiting its own program." Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts accused the administration of "allowing Saudi Arabia, a belligerent and authoritarian nation, to develop nuclear weapons technologies while starting a war with Iran under the guise of preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb," saying its "hypocrisy is matched only by their recklessness." Democrats noted that Rubio, as a senator, had endorsed the "No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act," which required Congressional approval of any Saudi nuclear deal.
Defenders in the news coverage were fewer than critics. Bob McNally, a former member of the George W. Bush National Security Council, told the BBC, "I think we have a good record of working with countries to responsibly develop their nuclear sectors," and pushed back on the idea that Washington was creating a serious security risk. Reactions from conservative outlets and from Israel's security establishment beyond Barkat's remarks had not been publicly surfaced by press time.
The Energy Department did not release the deal's text or a date for its Congressional submission. Saudi Arabia has lobbied Washington for such an agreement for years, and had reportedly received similar overtures from Russia and China.