{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senators-markey-and-merkley-lead-colleagues-to-demand-trump-administration-abandon-reckless-saudi-nuclear-deal", "Senators Markey and Merkley Lead Colleagues to Demand Trump Administration Abandon Reckless Saudi Nuclear Deal", "2026-09-25", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Edward J. Markey", "M000133", "www.markey.senate.gov", "markey", "https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "Trump deal caves to Saudi demands, fails \u201cGold Standard\u201d test\n\nLetter Text (PDF)\n\nWashington (September 25, 2026) - Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), co-chairs of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, today sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding that the Trump administration abandon its reckless nuclear deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which fails the Gold Standard nonproliferation test by surrendering two key conditions: the strictest inspection standards under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)\u2019s Additional Protocol and denying Saudi Arabia the means to produce weapons-grade nuclear materials through uranium enrichment and/or plutonium reprocessing. The letter was signed by Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).\n\nAs a U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio was among the most consistent voices warning about the dangers of giving Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have repeatedly threatened to pursue nuclear weapons, access to sensitive nuclear technology without proper safeguards.\n\nIn the letter, the senators wrote, \u201cWith this deal, the Trump Administration is departing from precedent, adopting looser restrictions, and caving to Saudi demands by agreeing to a process that is all but certain to allow Riyadh to acquire the means to enrich uranium and possibly develop nuclear weapons. If the Administration is serious about preventing that outcome, it should require Riyadh to meet the Gold Standard. And likewise, if Saudi Arabia genuinely has no intention of pursuing a nuclear weapon, it should have little objection to accepting the same commitments that the UAE and other states have made: implementing an Additional Protocol and banning enrichment and reprocessing.\u201d\n\nThe senators continued, \u201cAlthough not included in the agreement, media reports have suggested that the Saudi government would not have access to a U.S.-supplied and operated enrichment plant on Saudi soil. While there is no evidence that Saudi officials have agreed to such a \u2018black box\u2019 arrangement, if implemented, it would just raise additional concerns. It would be difficult to prevent the Kingdom from spying on a facility built on its soil and thus from gleaning sensitive information. A hypothetical black box arrangement could also commit the United States to far more than a commercial transaction. Sensitive American enrichment technology and the American personnel operating it would sit on Saudi soil, in a region at war and with the possibility of instability within the Kingdom itself. Given that an attack on the black box would be an attack on U.S. equities, we would be obliged to defend the facility. This would constitute a security guarantee by another name; an open-ended commitment to the defense of Saudi Arabia that Congress has not debated.\u201d\n\nThe senators concluded, \u201cPresident Trump launched an unconstitutional war against Iran claiming it was necessary to stop Tehran from enriching uranium. Yet, his Administration is now seeking to give Saudi Arabia access to the very technologies it says Iran must never possess. That hypocrisy undermines any chance of reaching a durable agreement with Iran. If Saudi Arabia can enrich uranium without the strongest inspections, Tehran will demand the same treatment. President Trump is weakening his own negotiating position while increasing the odds of regional nuclear proliferation.\u201d\n\nOn September 16, Senators Markey and Merkley led a bipartisan group of Senators to press the Trump administration to declassify and publicly release the two side letters accompanying the proposed U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement, referred to as a \u201c123 agreement.\u201d\n\nAs a founder of the national Nuclear Freeze movement, Senator Markey has long been the Congressional leader on ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons.\n\nOn August 26, Senator Markey urged Congress to reject the Trump-Saudi nuclear deal after the Trump administration sent to Congress a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that would open the door to providing the Kingdom with the means to produce nuclear weapons materials but would not require the most stringent safeguards against the development of those weapons.\n\nOn July 31, Senators Markey and Merkley, along with Representatives John Garamendi (CA-08) and Don Beyer (VA-08), co-chairs of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, published an opinion piece slamming Trump\u2019s Saudi nuclear deal, citing then-Senator Marco Rubio\u2019s understanding that handing nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia would be disastrous.\n\nOn March 25, Senators Markey and Merkley reintroduced the No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act, legislation that would mandate that any nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia can go into effect only if it receives the affirmative vote of Congress.\n\nOn March 18, Senator Markey led his colleagues in writing to Secretary Rubio demanding the Trump administration must meet the \u201cgold standard\u201d of nuclear non-proliferation protections by denying Saudi Arabia the means to produce weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, materials that could be used in a nuclear bomb.\n\nIn November 2025, Senator Markey and Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging the Trump administration to include the strongest possible \u201cgold standard\u201d nonproliferation measures in any nuclear cooperation agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to foreclose any pathway to a nuclear weapon.\n\nIn November 2024, Senator Markey wrote to the Biden administration seeking answers about any agreement that would normalize relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel in exchange for civil nuclear energy cooperation and a U.S. defense commitment to the Kingdom.\n\nAs far back as 2017, Senator Markey pressed the first Trump administration on the status of all current and ongoing discussions between the United States and other countries, including Saudi Arabia, on 123 agreements after it was reported that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was peddling a plan to build nuclear reactors throughout the Middle East.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-26T09:43:57Z", "2026-09-26T09:44:55Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senators-markey-and-merkley-lead-colleagues-to-demand-trump-administration-abandon-reckless-saudi-nuclear-deal"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.4887449108064175, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}