Democratic Senators Aim to Block Trump Nuclear Deal With Saudi Arabia

US Sens. Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley on Thursday continued to push back against President Donald Trump's proposed nuclear energy agreement with Saudi Arabia, setting up a vote on legislation that could block the deal before it takes effect.

"Giving Saudi Arabia access to US civilian nuclear energy technology without ironclad protections to make sure it doesn't provide a foundation for a nuclear bomb is unacceptable," declared Merkley (D-Ore.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who co-chairs the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group with Markey (D-Mass.).

Under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, Congress has 90 days of continuous session to review the deal. The pair of senators introduced a joint resolution of disapproval, on which the Senate is set to vote after November 29. The JRD would need to pass both GOP-controlled chambers by veto-proof majorities to actually block the agreement.

The senators are alarmed that Trump's agreement lacks a "gold standard" provision barring Saudi Arabia from reprocessing spent fuel or enriching uranium. They are also alarmed that the proposal doesn't require allowing International Atomic Energy Agency investigators to confirm that the nation is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

"It is essential that nations pursuing civilian energy programs agree to the 'gold standard' of restrictions on fuel reprocessing and enrichment and rigorous inspections to ensure that a nuclear energy program doesn't become a covert nuclear weapons program," Merkley argued. "We can't sleepwalk into a decision this consequential. The law gives Congress the power to review and block a deal like this, and the Senate will now have the chance to fulfill its statutory responsibility before it's too late."

The details of the agreement have concerned not only progressive senators, but also nuclear nonproliferation experts.

"The US-Saudi nuclear deal is about megatons, not megawatts. Trump should not be sharing nuclear bomb technology with a nation that US intelligence says may want nuclear weapons," said Markey. "This deal is the starting gun for a Middle East nuclear arms race. Congress must reject it."

The introduction came roughly a month after Markey and Merkley partnered with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for another JRD designed to block a $5 billion conventional weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, which includes over 10,000 joint direct attack munition guidance kits and a similar number of "dumb bombs" that can be combined to create precision weapons.

"I am deeply concerned by the kingdom's human rights abuses, the security of the region as the war in Iran rages on, and the proxy war that is escalating between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen," Markey said at the time. "Further escalation in the Saudi-Iran proxy war will worsen an already dire humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and risks setting off a nuclear arms race between Iran and Saudi Arabia."