While the Department of Energy announced a nuclear agreement was reached and signed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump said on social media the agreement “will be approved” but hasn’t yet.
DOE said July 22 that U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed a “peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, commonly known as a 123 agreement, alongside an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement.”
A day after DOE’s release, Trump took to his Truth Social account to say the “Civil Nuclear Deal… will be approved.” However, Trump added the deal is contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords.
A 123 agreement, otherwise called the “gold standard” nuclear agreement, is a legal framework named after section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act. It calls for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and another country, requiring a commitment to nuclear nonproliferation between both parties in order for the United States to export nuclear material, according to the State Department.
The 2020 Abraham Accords is a series of agreements establishing security ties between Israel and a few Arab nations. Saudi Arabia has long rejected normalizing diplomatic ties with Israel through the Accords until a credible pathway for independent Palestinian statehood is manifested.