{"id":555097,"date":"2026-07-23T03:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T03:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/555097\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T03:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T03:18:11","slug":"us-confirms-signing-a-nuclear-cooperation-pact-with-saudi-arabia-to-israels-alarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/555097\/","title":{"rendered":"US confirms signing a nuclear cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia, to Israel\u2019s alarm"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday forged a new agreement that could potentially provide the kingdom with uranium enrichment capability for its civilian nuclear program.<\/p>\n

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Minister of Energy Abdulaziz bin Salman formally signed the nuclear cooperation agreement, known as a \u201c123 agreement,\u201d alongside what the Trump administration described as a \u201cbilateral safeguards agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US administration released scant details of the deal, but the framework paves the way for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia after a joint US-Saudi study, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese agreements reflect our two nations\u2019 shared commitment to strengthening US-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,\u201d Wright said in a statement. \u201cRest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world\u2019s best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to head off emerging criticism of the decision under questioning by reporters about the risk that helping the Saudis fulfill their long-standing desire to enrich their own uranium could lead to new rounds of nuclear proliferation and competition in a volatile region.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe US is not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation,\u201d said Rubio, who was traveling in the Philippines on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The agreement does not include the International Atomic Energy Agency \u2018s Additional Protocol, which would allow for more monitoring, inspections and verification, according to a second person familiar with the decision.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump (left) stands with Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his visit to the White House, in Washington, November 18, 2025. (Mark Schiefelbein\/AP)<\/p>\n

The deal is expected to last 30 years and involve US firms in developing the program. The Energy Department in a statement said it will be submitted for review to Congress. US lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have voiced deep concern<\/a> over such a project due to fears Saudi Arabia could eventually convert it to develop nuclear weapons, though it doesn\u2019t appear likely the Republican-controlled legislature will block its implementation.<\/p>\n

The oil-rich kingdom\u2019s Energy Ministry said the agreement bolsters \u201cefforts to diversify energy sources, advance cutting-edge technologies, and expand opportunities for cooperation and investment in ways that serve the mutual interests of the two friendly countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement comes during the war against Iran launched by the US and Israel, in part, to wipe out Tehran\u2019s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted its nuclear enrichment program is peaceful.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the announcement, Alexander Bollfrass, a nuclear expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, called the deal \u201ca revolutionary new approach\u201d to nuclear nonproliferation policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revolutionary aspect of this agreement is that the United States is not asking Saudi Arabia to abide by the highest possible safeguards, internationally monitored safeguards that are standard and are available today, but instead is willing to at least theoretically transfer highly sensitive technology without the same level of oversight that one would expect,\u201d Bollfrass said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Abandoned a very important point of leverage\u2019<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump, during his first term, and former president Joe Biden tried to reach a nuclear deal with the kingdom to share American technology, with the latter\u2019s administration demanding such a move on normalization with Israel. Trump\u2019s administration however apparently made no such condition.<\/p>\n

At the White House on Tuesday, Trump spoke broadly about other countries joining the Abraham Accords, the regional normalization agreements he brokered at the end of his first term in 2020, but did not mention Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The accords created a regional rubric under which Israel normalized ties with some Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. Both Trump and Biden had sought to bring Saudi Arabia into the pact.<\/p>\n

Tensions throughout the region following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and subsequent Gaza war, however, pushed Saudi-Israel normalization further out of reach. The Saudi demands for normalization sharpened in the subsequent years and include Palestinian statehood or, at the very least, progress toward that goal. The Netanyahu government has adamantly rejected such a condition in the wake of the attack, and the Israeli public has increasingly opposed the concept as well.<\/p>\n

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who died last week, was an ardent advocate for an Israeli-Saudi deal. He had pushed Trump not to make nuclear concessions to Saudi Arabia without the kingdom moving closer to Israel.<\/p>\n

Graham had continued to work on normalization in the months leading up to his death. He told CBS News in June, \u201cWe\u2019re going to try to get Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords to end the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tSaudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) meeting with US Senator Lindsey Graham in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in a handout picture made available on April 13, 2023. (SPA\/AFP)<\/p>\n

Dan Shapiro, who worked during the Biden administration as a senior adviser on Middle East regional integration for the State Department, said Wednesday that a US-Saudi nuclear deal would make such normalization more difficult.<\/p>\n

The plan originally was for a civil nuclear energy agreement with sufficient safeguards against proliferation to be part of a package that would include normalization with Israel, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that the Trump administration has given it away without normalization,\u201d Shapiro told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Trump\u2019s deal \u201cseems to have abandoned a very important point of leverage to advance another important regional goal of the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was supposed to be a major carrot for Saudi Arabia if they were to normalize with Israel, and now that carrot has been provided without it.\u201dAs a result, he said, \u201cthe whole incentive structure would have to be redone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enrichment could open the door to weaponization<\/p>\n

Nonproliferation experts warn any spinning centrifuges within Saudi Arabia could open the door to a possible weapons program for the kingdom, something its assertive de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested he could pursue if Tehran obtains an atomic bomb.<\/p>\n

Wright traveled to Saudi Arabia last year shortly before Trump visited and discussed building out the kingdom\u2019s commercial nuclear power industry with his Saudi counterpart. The US Department of Energy has not responded to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Already, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact after Israel launched an attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials. Pakistan\u2019s defense minister then said his nation\u2019s nuclear program \u201cwill be made available\u201d to Saudi Arabia if needed, something seen as a warning for Israel, which according to foreign reports maintains its own nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n

Some lawmakers are hesitant about giving Saudis enrichment capability<\/p>\n

Enrichment isn\u2019t an automatic path to a nuclear weapon \u2014 a nation also must master other steps, including the use of synchronized high explosives, for instance. But it does open the door to weaponization, which has fueled the West\u2019s concerns over Iran\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates, a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, signed a 123 agreement with the US to build its Barakah nuclear power plant with South Korean assistance. But the UAE did so without seeking enrichment, something nonproliferation experts have held up as the \u201cgold standard\u201d for nations wanting atomic power.<\/p>\n

Rubio, as a Republican senator representing Florida, backed a bipartisan 2018 proposal that called for requiring Congress to approve any 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia. The bill was reintroduced by a group of Democratic lawmakers in March but has not passed into law.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers\u2019 Meeting in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines July 22, 2026. (Brendan Smialowski\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

Typically, 123 agreements \u2014 which authorize US companies to sell nuclear technology abroad \u2014 go into effect unless veto-proof majorities of Congress pass joint resolutions of disapproval.<\/p>\n

Rosemary Kelanic, the Middle East director at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank, said that uranium enrichment capability could give Saudi Arabia \u201ca potent source of leverage to extract future concessions from Washington, including new security guarantees, by threatening to weaponize its program unless the United States promises enhanced military protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

US firms could be winners in expected deal<\/p>\n

Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, predicted the deal would benefit US nuclear giant Westinghouse, which builds the large light-water reactors Saudi Arabia is seeking.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration said last month it is providing $17.5 billion in loans to speed development of 10 new large nuclear reactors designed by Westinghouse to meet skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers. The new reactors could use the same design, Westinghouse\u2019s AP1000, in the planned Saudi deal.<\/p>\n

Sherman said the US military is \u201cbombing Iran because they insist upon enriching and reprocessing\u201d nuclear material.<\/p>\n

Now it appears that US officials \u201care entering into an agreement with Saudi Arabia, giving them the green light to reprocess and to enrich, and the only difference I see here is that Westinghouse stands to make an awful lot of money on this deal, whereas the Iranians were not enriching American companies,\u201d Sherman said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday forged a new agreement that could potentially provide the kingdom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,251348,238250],"class_list":["post-555097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-saudi-nuclear-power","tag-us-saudi-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}