The US–Saudi 123 Agreement: more than nuclear cooperation at stake

International Institute for Strategic Studies  |  Tomisha Bino

The United States and Saudi Arabia signed a landmark civil nuclear cooperation 123 Agreement on 22 July 2026, establishing a legal framework for transferring sensitive enrichment and reprocessing capabilities while restoring American competitiveness in the global nuclear marketplace. However, subsequent statements by US President Donald Trump conditioning its implementation on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords have transformed this non-proliferation transaction into a direct test of American strategic reliability.

Bilateral negotiations dating back to former president Barack Obama's administration initially sought to lock the kingdom into long-term Western security alignment. Beyond satisfying escalating power demands and Vision 2030 economic goals, Riyadh views sovereign fuel cycles as an essential hedge against Iranian capabilities. Sudden diplomatic shift reinforces Saudi incentives to diversify strategic dependencies, building on its 2025 mutual defence pact with Pakistan and expanded nuclear options involving China or Russia. Consequently, Washington's political hesitation undermines Gulf non-proliferation architecture while accelerating independent Middle Eastern nuclear hedging.

Comment

Conditioning civil nuclear hardware sales on secondary political demands fundamentally reshapes security guarantees within the Gulf Cooperation Council. Riyadh’s explicit refusal to foreswear enrichment, contrasting with the commitments of the 2009 UAE–US 123 Agreement, reflects a structural unwillingness to tie sovereign energy infrastructure to external diplomatic concessions. The transaction’s stalling accelerates a multi-vector balancing strategy, directly incentivising expanded security consultations under the 2025 Saudi–Pakistan mutual defence framework. This shift demonstrates how transactional conditionalities in Western defense exports drive long-standing regional allies toward decentralized security arrangements.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If the United States abandons the non-proliferation concessions established in the 2009 UAE–US 123 Agreement, how does that alter the operational value of Washington's bilateral security guarantees across other Middle Eastern partner states?

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