Senator Markey Introduces Joint Resolution of Disapproval on U.S. Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia

Resolution Text (PDF) Washington (September 17, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), co-chairs of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, along with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), this week introduced a joint resolution of disapproval (JRD) for the Trump administration’s proposed sale of conventional weapons to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The weapons include thousands of joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs) and five thousand 2,000-pound bombs. Separately, the Trump administration recently submitted an agreement on U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation to Congress—as is required by law—but has classified two important side letters, which is unprecedented. Because the side letters affect the obligations and operation of the underlying agreement, Congress and the public cannot fully assess what the United States and Saudi Arabia have agreed to without seeing them. On 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 “123 agreement.” “The United States must not send thousands of conventional weapons to Saudi Arabia or allow it to develop a nuclear program. 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. 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,” s aid Senator Markey. As a founder of the national Nuclear Freeze movement, Senator Markey has long been the Congressional leader on ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons. On July 31, Senators Markey and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) 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’s Saudi nuclear deal, citing then-Senator Marco Rubio’s understanding that handing nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia would be disastrous. On 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. On March 18, Senator Markey led his colleagues in writing to Secretary Rubio demanding the Trump administration must meet the “gold standard” 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. In 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 “gold standard” nonproliferation measures in any nuclear cooperation agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to foreclose any pathway to a nuclear weapon. As 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. ###