June 2026
By Alexey Arbatov

The experience of six decades of nuclear arms control since the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty has been mostly successful, except for one aspect: the inability of Washington and Moscow to transition from their bilateral negotiating format to a multilateral format in order to physically limit and reduce nuclear arsenals beyond their two states. Over time, this has become the principal obstacle to further nuclear disarmament, at least as presented in the official positions of the two nuclear superpowers.

In 2023, President Vladimir Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the last remaining major nuclear agreement, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), except for continuing to observe its numerical ceilings. Among the official reasons Moscow cited were UK and French nuclear forces, which remain outside of strategic arms control. On the U.S. side, President Donald Trump in 2026 made China’s nuclear buildup the reason for ignoring Putin’s September 2025 proposal to abide by the numerical ceilings of New START for at least one year more.¹ This decision did away with that treaty and ended half a century of unprecedented success with bilateral strategic arms limitation and reduction.

The termination of New START is not in itself the beginning of the disintegration of nuclear arms control, but it may trigger its final demise. In future years, during the probable impasse of strategic dialogue and continuing strategic forces modernization, there may be growing pressure within Russia and the United States to abandon the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and resume explosive nuclear tests. Such a development might finally undercut the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) after its predictably unsuccessful May 2026 review conference. New weapon systems being pursued by Russia, the United States, China, and other nuclear-armed states may endanger other treaties, including those banning deployment of nuclear arms in outer space (1967) and on the seabed (1971). The scariest consequence of this trend would be a chain reaction of nuclear arms proliferation around the world with the crumbling of the seven nuclear-weapon-free zones, involving 177 states, and the ensuing access to nuclear weapons by unstable states and terrorist organizations. The new nuclear world may degenerate to nuclear chaos.

Unfortunate Experience

If the process of nuclear arms control is restarted sometime in the future, one primary challenge will be engaging the three other NPT-designated nuclear-weapon states—China, France, and the United Kingdom—in the limitation of nuclear weapons. Trump has made clear that he wants China involved in any future strategic nuclear negotiations and Putin will certainly address the question of French and UK nuclear arsenals. Thus, the multilateral approach will be at the foreground of discussions, whatever other concerns the two superpowers have about space missile defense systems, tactical nuclear weapons, conventional precision guided systems, and nuclear-armed airborne and underwater autonomous vehicles.

In fact, this is not a new subject. Initially, the idea of five-party nuclear arms control talks was launched in February 2008 at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. After that, a number of official five-party meetings (called P5 because the five states involved are the permanent members of the UN Security Council) adopted many general declarations in support of strategic stability, ratification of the CTBT, negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty, indefinite extension of the NPT, and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. As positive as those appeals were, the main goal has remained unattainable: The states did not move an inch toward practical limitation of their nuclear arms in the P5 format.²

The fundamental error of the P5 initiative was a formal interpretation of the central NPT Article VI, which obliges nuclear-armed states “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” This provision has not necessarily implied five-party arms reduction talks; it just committed all NPT nuclear-weapon states to engage in arms limitation and reduction. In fact, besides the two nuclear superpowers, France and the UK took unilateral steps to restructure and reduce their nuclear forces in 1990s and 2000s to save on defense expenditures.³ However, there were no formal agreements to ensure the strategic transparency and predictability of those steps, a point to which Putin referred while suspending New START in 2023.⁴

The national security policies of states define the goals of their nuclear weapon programs and disarmament stances. Of the nine nuclear nations, all except Israel (and South Africa, which abandoned its clandestine nuclear program in 1989),⁵ associate international prestige and status with their nuclear deterrence posture. In a more tangible way, all of them assign their nuclear forces the task of nuclear retaliation for the purpose of deterring an enemy’s aggression with nuclear and other kinds of weapons of mass destruction. The same kind of response is envisioned by France, Russia, the UK, and the United States: to deter nuclear or conventional attacks on themselves or their allies and partners.

However, the targets of nuclear deterrence are different for five of the nuclear-weapon states. For Russia, the targets are primarily the United States and U.S. allies in Europe and the Pacific. For the United States, they are Russia, China, and North Korea. For France and the UK, they are Russia. For China, the United States and India, plus Japan and South Korea, which do not possess nuclear weapons but have the capability to initiate such programs if they choose.

None of the P5 states would agree to limit its nuclear forces just for the sake of NPT Article VI if that decision does not buttress its national security. Instead, a state would have to receive in exchange an adequate limitation of military capabilities by potential opponents, foremost their nuclear forces engaged in mutual deterrence relationship. Disregarding this reality is the actual reason for the failure of the P5 dialogue.

Conditions of Arms Control Engagement

The first condition for the success of the last half century of arms control endeavors was a state of mutual nuclear deterrence. This concept was publicly recognized in the mid-1960s by the United States due to the efforts of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara⁶ and adopted by the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s.⁷ The second condition was the emergence of the approximate equality (parity) of strategic forces of the two superpowers in the early 1970s.

The first condition created the material foundation of interest of the parties in limiting nuclear forces of the opponent, which created the feasibility for tradeoffs. The second provided for equal starting and ending points in negotiations because no party would be willing to legalize its inferiority or sacrifice its superiority for the sake of reaching an agreement.⁸

This analysis may explain the reasons of the past failures to organize multilateral nuclear arms limitation in the P5 forum. The United States, France, and UK are allies and not interested in limiting each other’s weapons. The same is true about Russia and China, which have not expressed concerns (at least officially) about each other’s nuclear forces since the late 1980s. Presently, Moscow and Beijing have nothing to gain from mutual arms reduction.

Russia’s strategic relations with France and the UK are those of mutual nuclear deterrence, but their nuclear forces are highly asymmetric providing Russia with unquestioned superiority. The two European states would not agree to legalize Russian superiority in an arms control treaty with Moscow, or to put themselves under a common ceiling with U.S. forces. This option would be unacceptable for the United States as well because it would legalize a Russian advantage of 15 percent in delivery vehicles and 30 percent in warheads, which would be seen as still more detrimental in view of the ongoing Chinese strategic forces buildup.

In U.S.-Chinese strategic relations, mutual nuclear deterrence is present, but strategic parity is absent with a huge U.S. superiority expected to persist at least for the next 10 years.⁹

Both China and Russia would reject putting Chinese nuclear forces under a common ceiling with the Russians. Against the background of China’s projected strategic buildup, this would imply drastic reduction of Russian forces or the stringent unilateral limitation of Chinese forces.

Reviving Arms Control

In the political domain, the most vital imperative is to prevent nuclear escalation of the Ukrainian war and facilitate the ceasefire and peaceful settlement of that conflict. Relatively less explosive, but highly desirable politically is ending the conflict in the Middle East. In the meantime, the crucial arms control priority is to sustain the CTBT and the NPT.

The end of hostilities in Ukraine would open the way to resuming at least bilateral strategic arms negotiations if leaders in Washington and Moscow genuinely recognize the value of nuclear arms control for their national security as much as their predecessors did.

Dealing with a third nuclear state through the P5 arms control process is hopeless, however nice it sounds theoretically. Instead, the United States should try harder to engage China in substantive bilateral arms control discussions. Rather than proposing agreements on “transparency” and “predictability,” Washington should make suggestions that would not legalize Chinese inferiority in the types of weapons to be subject to the accord. In addition, the United States should aim to ensure that China’s eventual strategic position is better than it would be otherwise. Due to the lack of overall parity between the two countries, an initial agreement might equally limit parts of their nuclear forces that are each other’s primary concern.

Relying on the model of the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) interim agreement, which put limits on selected legs of strategic triads, the nuclear forces of Russia, France, and the UK may be limited by equal ceilings. They would not legalize the superiority of any party but may alleviate security concerns of both. A joint Anglo-French position on this issue would be a useful prerequisite and might fit a concept of European nuclear deterrent.

It seems inappropriate at this moment to get deeper into technical details of possible agreements among the nuclear-armed nations. The attitude of the main nuclear states toward strategic arms control is ambiguous, and the general political environment is highly unfavorable. Suffice it is to underline that a resumption of a U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue would make it easier to achieve the participation of other nations in nuclear arms control discussions.

Even if such talks took place, difficulties implementing the outcome of any agreement would be exacerbated by the emerging “revisionist” schools in Russia and abroad, which treat six decades of nuclear arms control as the outdated vestige of the past. Today, nuclear weapons are once again being portrayed as an effective instrument of foreign policy and even practical warfighting.¹⁰ These views may tangibly affect the moods of current political elites for whom the horrors of Hiroshima and the panic of the Cuban missile crisis are no more than just ancient legends.

ENDNOTES

1. It started with the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and was followed by its abandonment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran in 2018, and abrogation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (2019) and Open Skies Treaty (2020). For its part, Russia suspended participation in New START and withdrew from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty in 2023, retrieved its ratification of the CTBT, and refused to renew strategic arms talks in 2024.

2. That is not counting the elaboration of U.S.-Chinese strategic terms dictionary.

3. Noteworthy in the environment of unique détente during the two decades that France and the UK summarily reduced their nuclear forces from about 800 down to 510 deployed warheads. See SIPRI Yearbook 1989: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 17-29; SIPRI Yearbook 2022: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 369-379.

4. Vladimir Putin, “Presidential Address to Federal Assembly,” February 21, 2023.

5. Israel, like South Africa until 1989, keeps its nuclear potential in secret, although its nuclear status de-facto is well known and serves its regional influence and prestige, being at the same time a problem for nonproliferation.

6. Robert McNamara, The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office, Harper and Row (New York), pp. 51-67.

7. “Joint Soviet-United States Statement on the Summit Meeting in Geneva,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, November 21, 1985.

8. There were, of course, exceptions to this rule. In the SALT I interim agreement, the United States accepted Soviet advantage in the number of ballistic missiles, retaining superiority in the number of heavy bombers and MIRVed (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) missiles beyond the negotiated limits. In the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate more than twice as many missiles and three times as many warheads as the United States because the U.S. medium-range missiles posed a strategic threat to the USSR reaching deep into its territory, while the Soviet medium-range missiles were out of reach of the U.S. territory and posed only a theater threat to U.S. NATO and Pacific allies, as well as to China.

9. Compared to the U.S. total active nuclear arsenal of 3,700 warheads, China has about 600, while the ratio in strategic warheads inventory is correspondingly 3,500 to 350. See SIPRI Yearbook 2022: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Oxford University Press, 2025, pp. 203-209.

10. John R. Bolton, “Putin did the world a favor by suspending Russia’s participation in New START,” The Washington Post, May 4, 2023; Sergey A. Karaganov, “An Age of Wars? Article Two. What Is to Be Done,” Russia in Global Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 2, April/June 2024, pp. 5-8.

June 2026 
By Sharon Squassoni

What is more secret than the proposed U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement? The answer: the U.S. national security rationale for encouraging the spread of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing.

After decades of steadfastly opposing the spread of these fuel-making technologies, the United States is apparently prepared to allow two key allies—South Korea and Saudi Arabia—to enrich uranium and reprocess nuclear spent fuel. In the first case, consent for South Korea has been a decades-long process that was foreshadowed in the 2015 renegotiation of the U.S.-South Korea nuclear cooperation agreement. It took U.S. President Donald Trump what seemed like only a few minutes to short-circuit the elaborate processes developed in that agreement to forestall this risky development. However, South Korea has a vibrant nuclear energy industry and a long history of cooperation with the United States.

The exact opposite is true for Saudi Arabia. Apart from some ill-considered nuclear technology information and assistance exports in the first Trump administration, which triggered congressional investigations, there has been no U.S. nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia—and for good reason. Despite 20 years of talks, Saudi Arabia since 2008 has balked at taking two steps long considered minimum requirements for nuclear cooperation partners in the Middle East: forsaking uranium enrichment and reprocessing, and signing an additional protocol, which allows stronger International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

Not only does the draft deal not require those two things, it appears to go a step further: The United States seems to have offered to assist Saudi Arabia in acquiring fuel cycle capabilities with the promise of additional bilateral safeguards and verification at “the most proliferation-sensitive areas of potential nuclear cooperation between The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States (enrichment, conversion, fuel fabrication, and reprocessing).”¹

In return, the Trump administration has extracted an unenforceable promise that “the United States and American companies will be the Kingdom’s civil nuclear cooperation partners of choice,”² claiming that the draft agreement “puts United States industry at the heart of The Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia’s civil nuclear development.”³ Given that Saudi Arabia has been openly courting several nuclear suitors, it appears the United States has purchased exclusivity with sensitive nuclear technology.

Why is this bad? Because such technology can be used to make fuel for peaceful nuclear energy or for nuclear weapons—and because this represents a tectonic shift in long-standing U.S. nuclear export policy.⁴

Of course, the full scope of the deal will only be revealed to Congress after the agreement is signed by the two governments and submitted for congressional review. And, as with other nuclear framework agreements, commercial contracts might not materialize. This was the case for another controversial “123 agreement” (named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act) with India. Then, as now, U.S. negotiators sacrificed nonproliferation precedent and principles to misguided and unrealistic strategic aims, but in this deal, the unspoken national security aims are nothing short of remaking the Middle East. That vision depends, of course, on how the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran turns out.

A Little History

Nuclear negotiations with Saudi Arabia, on the whole, have never been “business as usual.” Over the course of 20 years, they have been upstaged by political disruption in the Middle East on several occasions, which suggests that the negotiations are anything but the routine, legalistic, framework discussions that they ought to be.

Negotiations inched forward in 2008 with a memorandum of understanding that Saudi Arabia would rely on commercial markets for fuel supply and begin to implement its IAEA comprehensive safeguards agreement. Despite, or maybe because of, the 123 agreement between the United States and the United Arab Emirates in 2009—considered a “gold standard” nuclear cooperation agreement because the UAE forswore uranium enrichment and reprocessing—Saudi negotiators balked at including similar language in a draft agreement with Washington.

In 2018, the assassination of the Saudi journalist and U.S. resident, Jamal Khashoggi, in Istanbul by agents of the Saudi government brought negotiations to a halt; after resuming under the Biden administration, they were again halted by the October 7, 2022, Hamas attack on Israel. (The Biden administration planned to connect a Saudi nuclear deal with Saudi-Israeli rapprochement.) The current holdup in submitting the nuclear deal to Congress is the war on Iran. These political disruptions, however, mask deeper issues.

Saudi leaders at times have stated their desire to pursue a full fuel cycle, from mining uranium to reprocessing the spent fuel.5 This is not typical for states just embarking on nuclear energy programs. Most states prefer to procure fuel cycle services from abroad because it is easier and cheaper to do so. Developing fuel cycle capabilities is expensive, and in the case of enrichment, technically challenging. What’s more, enrichment and reprocessing technology is restricted under the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) rules. Saudi Arabia, which does not yet have a single nuclear power plant, reportedly has domestic uranium reserves and justifies its fuel cycle ambitions on that basis. This makes no economic sense, given the vast reserves and low prices of the world’s top uranium suppliers. The United States, with more than 20 percent of all nuclear power reactors, relies securely and overwhelmingly on foreign uranium supply.

Saudi Arabia’s insistence on a full fuel cycle is worrisome for a special reason: Saudi officials have often stated that they would acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did, despite their obligation not to under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Possessing fuel cycle capabilities would remove the biggest stumbling block to nuclear weapons.

In November 2025, the Trump administration announced that it had completed its negotiation with Saudi Arabia on civil nuclear energy cooperation.⁶ Rather than submit the text of the agreement to Congress, it needed to first submit a report that explained why it would enter into an agreement with a country that did not adhere to the highest standards of nonproliferation.⁷ That highest standard, accepted by 144 countries, is the additional protocol to comprehensive IAEA safeguards agreements. This protocol was developed in the 1990s to strengthen inspectors’ abilities to investigate what countries were not reporting about their nuclear activities. As Iran demonstrates, it is crucial to be able to investigate undeclared activities and sites, especially when countries have fuel-making capabilities such as enrichment or reprocessing.

The executive branch’s report, submitted to Congress in November 2025, gave no clue that Saudi Arabia does not yet have an additional protocol. Instead, it cryptically states that the U.S.-Saudi agreement “contains a number of unique terms designed to advanced U.S. nonproliferation interests in the Kingdom, while addressing Saudi sovereignty concerns that inform its position on the Additional Protocol.”

Sovereignty concerns are usually invoked to explain why a country fails to sign up to new agreements. Although Saudi Arabia has publicly stated that it would adopt the additional protocol, the administration report seems to suggest that it may not. Ironically, since the additional protocol was introduced in the 1990s, Saudi concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East should have diminished: Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was destroyed, and Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a severe setback since the United States and Israel began attacks in June 2025.

The report to Congress argued that U.S. national security interests will be enhanced by expanding influence with Saudi Arabia, by potentially selling reactors that would bolster the U.S. domestic nuclear industry and by strengthening the kingdom’s electricity grid to support U.S. bases there. The report argues that the deal will significantly reduce the risks of nuclear weapons proliferation because it meets current U.S. nonproliferation requirements under the Atomic Energy Act—but not the additional protocol requirement, which stems from a different law.

The report states that proliferation risks also will be reduced because the United States will implement a separate, bilateral agreement with Saudi Arabia for the most sensitive types of cooperation, which it has already negotiated in parallel with the 123 agreement and will be submitted to the IAEA Board of Governors for approval. The national security arguments put forth in the November report are largely unsubstantiable and the nonproliferation claims are misleading. Congress will have a big job to do when it receives the agreement.

Potential Outcomes

There are several different levels of assistance that the United States might provide to Saudi Arabia. The minimum would be to grant consent for uranium enrichment and reprocessing without providing the technology to do so. The United States has done this for countries such as India and Japan. Saudi Arabia would either develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities itself or buy them from another country.

The drawback to this approach could be the willingness of other countries to provide such sensitive technology. The NSG guidelines state that exports should be authorized “only when the recipient has brought into force a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, and an Additional Protocol based on the Model Additional Protocol or, pending this, is implementing appropriate safeguards agreements in cooperation with the IAEA, including a regional accounting and control arrangement for nuclear materials, as approved by the IAEA Board of Governors.”⁸ This requirement might help explain the need for the bilateral safeguards agreement mentioned in the November 2025 report. Other suppliers might insist that Saudi Arabia actually go through with its plan to adopt an additional protocol before supplying any technology, but the existence of an approved bilateral safeguards agreement could make that unnecessary. Overall, this approach would be unusual, but it would not create a precedent in terms of the United States supplying actual enrichment and reprocessing equipment or technology.

Other approaches would involve variations on technology transfer, ownership and operation. Given that the report refers to a bilateral safeguards agreement, it is unlikely that the two countries have agreed to allow the United States to build, own, and operate sensitive nuclear facilities on Saudi soil or on land that would be considered extraterritorial, such as the UN headquarters in New York. It is also unlikely that the United States is intending to set up a multinational facility on Saudi soil. This would leave the possibility of the United States selling enrichment and reprocessing technology or facilities to Saudi Arabia, and possibly being involved in the construction to ensure that safeguards could be incorporated into their design.

In fact, the NSG guidelines recommend that, “For a transfer of an enrichment facility, the supplier and recipient state should work together to ensure that the design and construction of the transferred facility is implemented in such a way so as to facilitate IAEA safeguards.”⁹ Congress should be aware that this is a basic minimum, rather than a special bell or whistle of the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal. Congress should also be aware that the United States has rarely implemented bilateral safeguards agreements.¹⁰ Other variables could include U.S. financial shares in Saudi facilities or U.S. personnel assigned to help operate a facility to help monitor its production. All of these options represent a departure from past U.S. practices.

It is important to note that other U.S. laws besides the Atomic Energy Act come into play. For example, the Glenn Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act would require cutting off a range of foreign and military assistance to countries that receive reprocessing materials, equipment or technology. Although Congress did not presume that the United States would be the supplier when the amendment was adopted, the language applies universally. There is a provision for a presidential waiver, however, upon certification that termination of assistance “would be seriously prejudicial to the achievement of United States nonproliferation objectives or otherwise jeopardize the common defense and security.”

Conflicting Messages

Paradoxically, a U.S. administration that has almost religiously opposed Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities—to the point of invoking Christianity¹¹ in defense of the strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities—is about to extend that capability, as well as reprocessing, to a major Iranian competitor. The U.S. designation of Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally in January 2026, along with this imminent nuclear deal, certainly places Saudi Arabia in the camp opposite Iran. In the context of the current war against Iran, the U.S.-Saudi nuclear dealmaking conveys messages, whether intended or not.

One positive message is that only members of the NPT in good standing can be trusted with enrichment and reprocessing. Nevertheless, this lowers the bar from the overall nonproliferation goal of not spreading such capabilities. Meanwhile, allowing Saudi Arabia to skip implementing the additional protocol will weaken Washington’s hand in negotiating with Tehran. Any deal that allows Iran a measure of enrichment capability would need to include implementation of the additional protocol. To be consistent, the United States would need to at least apply monitoring and restrictions on an enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia that are, at minimum, equal to or better than those developed under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The United States would also need to develop advanced monitoring for a Saudi reprocessing plant.

It is possible that the Trump administration assumed a quick surrender by Iran, with an agreement never to enrich again, and that a fuel cycle complex in Saudi Arabia could serve as a regional hub for future Middle East nuclear power plants. There have been many proposals for regional fuel cycle centers to blunt the prospects of nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East. Cutting a deal with Saudi Arabia before resolving Iran’s nuclear future, however, would be foolish and shortsighted.

A second possible message is that only U.S. allies can be trusted with sensitive nuclear technology, guaranteed by the United States. This is a variation on a familiar theme, echoed in the November 2025 report, that only U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements contain adequate proliferation standards. Such discrimination is unhealthy for the NPT, but more importantly, could provoke parallel actions by Russia and China with their allies. Three negative consequences would ensue. First, there could be further spread of enrichment and reprocessing technology to allies of Russia and China, an unwelcome proliferation risk. Second, a proliferation of bilateral safeguards arrangements could undercut the IAEA’s ability to monitor and enforce safeguards. Third, the cost-effectiveness of having one international agency monitor nuclear material worldwide would evaporate. In the 1950s, when nuclear power was in its infancy, bilateral safeguards would have been cumbersome. In the 2030s, a return to bilateral safeguards is ludicrous.

Other takeaways from this agreement could be more ominous. For example, has the Trump administration decided to engage in selective nuclear weapons proliferation, allowing countries such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea to develop latent nuclear weapons capabilities? Trump has publicly mused about Japan and South Korea acquiring their own nuclear weapons and is surely aware of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 2018 comments that Saudi Arabia would develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Equipping Saudi Arabia with a latent nuclear weapons capability could be seen as counterbalancing Iran in a longer time frame that assumes Iran cannot be kept from acquiring a nuclear arsenal forever. Such a high-risk strategy is antithetical to the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime and also risks triggering unintended consequences.

A resolution of Iran’s nuclear program could clarify the risks of such cooperation with Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, an outcome that guarantees a non-nuclear Iran could lessen proliferation concerns about Saudi Arabia, whose leaders claimed that they would acquire whatever capabilities Iran had (nuclear weapons or otherwise), and perhaps lead Saudi Arabia to back down from its fuel cycle demands. On the other hand, a resolution of the conflict with Iran that left future enrichment options open might cause Saudi Arabia to require the same.

Congressional Role

When the signed U.S.-Saudi 123 agreement is sent to Congress, members will have 90 days of continuous session in which to review the agreement and the associated nonproliferation assessment statement. This timing means that the agreement must be submitted by September 2026 to enter into force in this Congress, or risk having to be resubmitted to the next Congress. Most agreements have occasioned hearings, but the more controversial ones—with China and India—drove legislation to restrict or levy additional nonproliferation requirements. In the case of China, this caused a 13-year delay in implementation.

For close to 20 years, members of Congress have intermittently introduced legislation and resolutions to ban nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia. In 2018, Congress held a hearing on the implications of nuclear cooperation, triggered in part by the export of Part 810 of the Code of Federal Regulations, on nuclear technology and assistance, under the first Trump administration.¹² In 2019, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a report, “Corporate and Foreign Interests Behind White House Push to Transfer U.S. Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia.” Prompted by concern about the earlier transfers, the congressional investigation revealed extensive and high-placed foreign and private lobbying on behalf of Saudi Arabia for nuclear technology transfers without a so-called gold standard (see Fig. 1). Several individuals involved in the lobbying effort hold senior positions in the second Trump administration, including Thomas Barrack, the ambassador to Turkey. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, holds no official position in the administration but is deeply enmeshed in negotiations with Iran and has received billions of dollars of investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners.¹³

There are many issues for Congress to explore when it receives the Saudi 123 agreement. For example, what is the quality and status of nuclear governance and the current level of corruption in Saudi Arabia? How does overturning long-standing U.S. policy on consent to enrich and reprocess as well as on actually providing technology strengthen nonproliferation? Is the Trump administration overturning this policy for all new 123 agreement negotiations? If not, why not?

Congress should inquire about the envisioned arrangements regarding information transfer, ownership, and operation of potential sensitive fuel cycle facilities as well as the IAEA’s monitoring role in bilateral safeguards. These all could significantly shape proliferation risks. In particular, it would be useful to gain insights into the details of the bilateral safeguards agreement with Saudi Arabia.

Since there is no requirement for congressional review of bilateral safeguards agreements, Congress should get some answers up front before the 123 agreement enters into force. For example, Congress should request a comprehensive briefing on U.S. experiences in implementing bilateral nuclear safeguards, including lessons learned. Are there risks or incentives to hide shortcomings in bilateral arrangements when countries are partners rather than adversaries, as in the case of Argentina and Brazil? Depending on the arrangements (e.g., Saudi operators with U.S. monitors; U.S. owned, operated, and monitored; or some other version of partnership), both Saudi Arabia and the United States could have incentives to collude in order to hide inconsistencies. Would a dispute over or anomaly in safeguards implementation under the bilateral agreement affect Saudi Arabia’s NPT status or just the bilateral relationship? Will the IAEA’s monitoring role at sensitive nuclear sites be akin to its role at European Atomic Energy Community-monitored sites?

More generally, how will the Trump administration guard against pressure arising from a context of trillion-dollar Saudi investments in the U.S. economy? What are the arrangements for guaranteeing that Saudi Arabia relies exclusively on U.S. technology and safeguards? More importantly, can the U.S. government guarantee that Saudi Arabia would not ban U.S. personnel from sensitive sites in the event of a political rupture? What mechanisms are available and feasible to prevent the kingdom from nationalizing the facility? Lastly, Congress should ask the administration for a detailed assessment of the impact of this agreement on Iran’s nuclear future, and on other nuclear programs in the Middle East, in an effort to uncover what the real national security aims of this agreement might be.

The Road Ahead

The leitmotif of the Trump administration on nuclear energy is more, faster, and fewer regulations, at home and abroad. At the 2026 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York in May, the U.S. delegate declared that Trump is “unleashing the ingenuity and strength of the American nuclear industry for the benefit of the world.”¹⁴ If there is little restraint in what gets sold, however, the costs—nuclear weapons proliferation—may vastly outweigh the benefits.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the one speed bump to this fast-and-furious approach to nuclear cooperation is the war against Iran. Timing is everything, and trying to negotiate away enrichment and reprocessing for Iran while bestowing it upon Saudi Arabia may require too much sleight of hand for even the Trump administration. While the outcome of the Iran war still hangs in the balance, it would be foolish to move ahead with a deal that could tip the scales so drastically.

Even if the United States successfully untethers Iran from its nuclear program, setting up a full fuel cycle in Saudi Arabia runs the risk of creating a shadow Iran. Nuclear energy is not widely spread in the Middle East now, and predictions of quick deployments are vastly exaggerated. If ever there was a time to pause and assess the implications, it is now. Nuclear cooperation agreements should be earned, not given away as geopolitical door prizes.

ENDNOTES

1. Kelsey Davenport, “Is Trump Jeopardizing Nonproliferation Efforts to Get A Nuclear Cooperation Deal with Saudi Arabia? A Report To Congress Suggests He Is.” Arms Control Association issue brief, Vol. 18, Issue 2, February 19, 2026.

2. “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Solidifies Economic and Defense Partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” The White House, November 18, 2025.

3. Davenport, 2026.

4. Sharon Squassoni, “Nuclear Mirage: U.S. Nuclear Cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” Arms Control Today, Vol. 53, No. 10 (December 2023).

5. Luke Caggiano, “Saudi Arabia Aiming For Complete Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” Arms Control Today, Vol. 53, No. 2 (March 2023).

6. White House fact sheet, November 18, 2025.

7. Davenport, 2026.

8. Nuclear Suppliers Group, “Guidelines for Nuclear Transfers,” NSG Part I Guidelines, July 2023.

9. Ibid.

10. Bilateral safeguards agreements predated the NPT. The United States had only exported five nuclear power reactors before then, and three of them were safeguarded by EURATOM. The other two—Breznau-1 in Switzerland and Tarapur in India—were subject to bilateral safeguards inspections, the former until 1978 and the latter until 1983.

11. Greg Jaffe and Elizabeth Dias, “Hegseth Invokes Divine Purpose to Justify Military Might,” The New York Times, March 20, 2026.

12. Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Implications of a U.S.-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Cooperation Agreement for the Middle East,” Serial No. 115-122, March 21, 2018.

13. Rob Copeland and Maureen Farrell, “Jared Kushner Solicits Funds for his Firm While Working as Mideast Envoy, The New York Times, March 13, 2026.

14. John Zadrozny, “Statement by the United States to the NPT Review Conference,” May 4, 2026.