President Donald Trump has quietly handed Congress a deal that could reshape the Middle East’s nuclear future but he isn’t letting go of one condition. The agreement, aimed at helping Saudi Arabia build a civilian nuclear program, was submitted to Capitol Hill on August 24, as required under the Atomic Energy Act. Yet Trump continues to insist the pact won’t move forward unless Saudi Arabia agrees to normalize ties with Israel, according to a Trump administration official.
The document itself is classified, a detail that has raised eyebrows among lawmakers. Four people familiar with the matter, speaking anonymously because they weren’t authorized to discuss it, confirmed the submission but wouldn’t say whether Trump’s demand about Israel is written into the classified text.
The story took an unexpected turn last month. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed the nuclear agreement in Washington with quiet confidence. But barely a day later, Trump announced a new condition: Saudi Arabia must join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 framework that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. That single statement cast fresh doubt over whether the deal would ever be finalized.
Under U.S. law, Congress now has 90 legislative days to review the agreement. If lawmakers take no action or fail to pass a resolution rejecting it the pact automatically becomes law, without needing a vote in either chamber.
What makes this moment unusual is the secrecy itself. Past nuclear agreements, known as “123 agreements,” have typically been made public, even when they carried classified annexes. This one stands apart, wrapped almost entirely in confidentiality, leaving much of the deal’s true weight hidden from public view.
