Secretary Wright & IAEA Director General on Launch of ATLAS Initiative – Aug 26, 2026

Thanks everyone being here today, been an exciting couple days and still going on this Atlas Initiative. We're trying to marry up two critical things for the global future, which is trade. 80% by mass of goods, food, energy, manufactured goods that exchange between nations do so on seaborne ships. This is a massive industry critical for world prosperity, coupled with the nuclear renaissance, long talked about but actually happening today. The United States and the Trump administration have leaned in heavily on developing, not just reinvigorating the construction of large nuclear reactors, but new technologies, these small modular reactors. As you've all heard before, we've had four of those next generation reactors go critical by July 4 deadline. The president set an aggressive deadline and we beat it. A fifth reactor has done that since then. We expect seven or eight total by the end of this year. So American nuclear innovation, American nuclear technologies are moving at light speed. They will be going into the grid to drive down electricity prices, to enable industrialization. They'll be providing process heat for modern manufacturing. That's all happening. But those technologies and combined with international bodies, the International Maritime Organization and the International Atomic Energy Association have gathered in D.C. today over 500 scientists, businessmen, innovators, regulators, heads of delegations from over 30 countries to lay the groundwork for a future of nuclear powered ship transport and floating nuclear power plants on ships to more rapidly deploy energy to where it's needed around the world. Incredibly exciting initiative. And I'll turn it over to one of the key partners and sponsors of this effort, Director General Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. As he was saying, a number of important forces are in motion from the maritime sector, from the nuclear sector, and of course from the global platform that the IEA is. We thought that it was necessary to come up with something like Atlas, which is a platform that is bringing together all the, if you want, all the questions we need to answer, all the boxes we need to check, so that this initiative and this trend in the markets, in the technology, can happen in a safe, secure way, in a way that ensures the flow of technology, investments, and so on. As the Secretary was saying, more than 500 participants, many countries. A statement has been agreed by more than 25 of those participating, and more are signing up, where countries are embracing the initiative. And soon, in the fall, we will start with a silent, perhaps less sexy, technical work on the norms, as the Secretary was saying, with our colleagues and friends in London from the IMO, the International Maritime Organization, and with different countries. So it is really a historic day today, Mr. Secretary. I thank you very much for this leadership that you are showing on a global enterprise, as this is. So happy to take your questions, if you have any for us. Thank you very much. Hi, Callie Patterson with the Washington Examiner. I know this is just, you know, the launch of this initiative, but the administration has not shied away from setting timelines before. So do you guys have a timeline for when we can see this technology adopted for shipping? The timeline to bring 30 nations together to start a vigorous dialogue face-to-face is right now. And so we're launching this engagement, because it's going to require international regulators, governments working together, technologies. So the process, the key process in gathering started this week, right here, right now. When that leads to ships and transformation of global shipping, too early to say deadlines for that. But really critical is to establish a framework and understanding a broad agreement on where to go. I don't know if DG Grossi wants to say something. I would add, yeah, Mr. Secretary, I would add that we're not talking about something that is going to happen in 200 years. This is coming. And we've seized the moment. We understood, talking to the maritime industry, to the shipping companies, to ports, to container companies, that they are looking very intensively and not now. They have been, over the past five, six years, looking into ways to make transport more efficient, cleaner, more reliable. It's a matter of costs, of course, but also a matter of efficiency. And as the Secretary was saying, when you look at the implications in terms of trade globally, this is going to be a big thing. So we realized that we needed to be tackling this work immediately. Otherwise, you know, with nuclear technology, you have a number of questions that ports may have to be addressing. It's a different kind of proposition than simply, you know, oil or any traditional fuel. Imagine if ships, large-scale transport ships, traveled 50 percent faster than they did today. The same number of ships would deliver 50 percent more goods. And imagine if they needed to refuel every several years instead of every voyage. Yep. Thank you. Amina Syed with Energy Intelligence Group. I have two questions. One is for both of you, which is, is IMO approval needed in net zero framework needed to backstop or create commercial demand for this initiative for nuclear propelled shipping? Absolutely not. And even with that regular Tory driver, can nuclear propelled shipping compete with other decarbonized fuels like methanol? And, sir, I have a question for you. If decarbonized shipping isn't on the U.S. agenda right now, why deploy nuclear propelled shipping when it will almost certainly be more expensive? So decarbonized shipping is absolutely not on the U.S. agenda. We're a believer that if you invest or spend a dollar on something, you better get more than a dollar benefit. You know, the IMO, this net zero shipping, of course, we don't have net zero shipping fuels. It's just a way to collect the global carbon tax, drive up the price of goods, create a new bureaucracy that's going to collect this money and do God knows what with it. So the United States stands firmly against any ideas that just lead to impoverishing humans and creating more bureaucracies. We don't stand for that. But we don't see that as all related to nuclear shipping. Nuclear is an incredible energy dense technology that's going to bring incredible advantages. If we did it tomorrow, would it be more expensive than traditional shipping? Sure. But that's true of all new technologies, all new technologies. Can we build effective, safe, cost efficient, nuclear propulsion? Well, I think Hyman Rickover answered that question 70 years ago with the launch of the United States nuclear navy, our submarines and our aircraft carriers. Now the next generation is do that commercially, do it cost efficiently, do it so the benefits exceed the cost. But we're doing this to make it better for humans, not as in we need an extra cost or a tax burden and we need to impoverish everyone just because we like this. We want to introduce it into the marketplace, let it compete. But when you turn private capital and innovation loose, what do you generally see? You see increased performance and reduced costs. And I see no reason we'd see anything different here. Ari. Hey, Ari Madder from Bloomberg. Good to see you guys. My question is just given the attacks we're seeing on ships and the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, why do you think now is the right time to introduce nuclear into the commercial shipping equation? Well, now because the nuclear renaissance is happening now and this is a next generation application of nuclear technologies and nuclear renaissance. You mentioned attacks on shipping. There's lots of ways to generate power and energy around the world. I'll point out if you look at the last 50, 60 years, number one safest way to generate energy on planet Earth is nuclear. So attacks on shipping, they don't impact at all what we're thinking about. These ships will be incredibly safe, incredibly robust, following standards and inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. No reason you can't have the safest ships applying the world seas powered by nuclear propulsion. Yes. Annala Khan with the Epoch Times. Thanks for taking our question. Mr. Secretary, given the significant CAPEX requirement, does the administration plan to introduce financial incentives to make nuclear powered commercial shipping economically viable for industry operations? No plans for right now about having tax or federal government policies to incentivize nuclear shipping. Now, we're early in the game right now. But thank you for that question. And I'll mention right now, just since we're talking about it, the four reactors, next generation, small, modular, non-light water reactors that went critical in the United States by July 4 this year, none of them, none of them had federal funding from the United States government. What we are doing is preparing a thoughtful, sensible, safety focused regulatory framework internationally and in the United States government to just be more efficient in the way we permit, regulate, monitor nuclear technologies so that they can compete in the marketplace. Yeah, this is not a plan for big subsidies or picking winners and losers. This is just putting the commercial framework in place so that innovation and competition will drive progress. Yeah, Bill Freeman with Global Platts. Mr. Secretary, there are reports that the U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation deal was sent down to Congress. Can you confirm that the text has been sent forward along with the intelligence community assessment? And can you talk a little bit about your hopes for that agreement? I can absolutely confirm that, that that agreement has been sent to Congress. Very excited about this. This is just another great step forward in U.S.-Saudi cooperation. It's a great step forward in the renaissance of the United States civil nuclear industry. This is an agreement that aligns nuclear's long-term deals. They're not transactional, they're partnership deals. And this is saying the United States government and business community will be the partners with Saudi Arabia going forward to build civil nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia. A lot of people don't realize, but in the summertime when it's hot, Saudi Arabia generates a meaningful amount of its electricity by burning oil. This takes over a million barrels a day of oil off the marketplace. Oil is a very expensive way to generate electricity. We don't do that in the United States, except in an island like Hawaii or in New England that just decides to do expensive energy policies. They want to impose expensive energy on their citizens, and so they burn oil at peak demand times. But in general, in the United States, we're powered on natural gas, we're powered on coal, and we're powered on nuclear power. Saudi Arabia wants to do the same thing. Gas is their biggest source of electricity. They want gas and nuclear to power their electric grid. They have some solar as well, so they can export their higher value, more expensive product oil to the world. We have comprehensive safeguard agreements with this. This will be the safest possible way to exchange commercial technology. The International Atomic Energy Agency is the monitor of those safeguards. But this is the model President Trump has spoke of since he arrived in his second term, which is commerce, not conflict in the Middle East. Let's cooperate on energy and economic progress, but do it in a safe, thoughtful, carefully designed fashion. I look forward to uranium enrichment by Saudi Arabia in some future date, right? Every agreement, whatever an agreement says, two parties can always come together and say, let's revisit that agreement. The only difference in this agreement is it explicitly says that. We're going to work together, the United States and Saudi Arabia, and evaluate what are the rooms for growth of the Saudi nuclear industry. They have uranium reserves in Saudi Arabia. Maybe we should be mining uranium in Saudi Arabia. Maybe there's other commercial roles in the space for Saudi Arabian-American cooperation. Certainly, there's no reason in the near term to bring enrichment technology to Saudi Arabia. They don't even have a nuclear reactor yet. I would say that's something many years down the road, and it would only happen if at that time, Saudi Arabia and the United States government both mutually agreed this makes commercial sense and this fits into our national security framework. I've heard things in the press saying it's bringing enrichment or granting enrichment reprocessing to Saudi Arabia. They're just not true, but thank you for asking that question. Mr. Secretary, Tim Gardner of Reuters. On the 1-2-3 again, the President said last month that Saudi Arabia would have to join the Abraham Accords for that to work, but Saudi Arabia hasn't joined the Abraham Accords, and yet it's being sent to Congress. How does that square? Both of these are a process to bring commercial nuclear to Saudi Arabia. It goes through Congress. It'll come back to the President. This is a process. I'm thrilled that President Trump started the Abraham Accords six years ago, and they have been a road for peace and bringing countries together in the Middle East. President Trump and the entire administration shares the desire to get all countries in the Middle East to join the Abraham Accords, move past the era of conflict and towards the era of commerce. So yes, President Trump has explicitly linked Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords to the deployment of nuclear power into Saudi Arabia. Both of those tracks will be worked in parallel, and they're both just tremendous goals for the U.S. and for Saudi Arabia. Could the 1-2-3 deal be finalized without Saudi Arabia joining? That's President Trump's decision at the end of the day, but I think he's been pretty clear, and he's been clear for years of his desire to get Saudi Arabia, just a critical ally of ours and partner in the Middle East, to join the Abraham Accords. He wants to see those two things happen together, and I think he sees a window of opportunity to make that happen. Yes, sir. Hi, Jacob with Scripps News. Thanks for doing this. One question for each of you, if I can. Mr. Director General, you mentioned last night that you spoke with the Secretary about nuclear nonproliferation issues, including in Iran. Could you just update us sort of on the situation there and where things are going? And Mr. Secretary, on enrichment specifically, as it appears that the kinetic phase of this conflict with Iran is at least paused for now, could the United States, could the Trump administration consider this conflict ended without addressing the enriched uranium within the country, and sort of what are plans for that at this stage? Well, thank you very much. I think you, on Iran, you mentioned the word pause, and I think it's an accurate way to describe at least the nuclear chapter of that process. We know this is a multi-pronged process with areas that exceed the nuclear part, but I think it's fair to say that this is a very important, if we go back to the origins of this conflict, it is fair to say that we need to find an adequate solution and a longstanding, and I would say predictable, status quo when it comes to the nuclear issue in Iran. We have to remember that there's still 440 kilograms, I'm sorry, a few hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium at 60%. There are many capabilities that are still there. So we have been working very hard with the Secretary General and also with Steve Whitkoff, with John Kushner, with our Iranian counterparts. So I think we have succeeded in identifying what are the issues and areas where we will have to work together to provide, when the time comes, and we all hope this is going to be soon, where we can have this chapter as settled in terms of having predictable activity and not having yet another crisis as the ones that we have been seeing repeating themselves over decades in Iran. So as the Secretary General said, our strong desire is to end the Iranian nuclear program through negotiations and through inspections administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency. That has been the agenda of the Trump administration from day one, and we've not abandoned that possibility. I hope and expect we probably get to that eventually. But in the meantime, we can't control what the Iranian government does. This regime does not represent the Iranian people. They don't represent a future of peace and potential prosperity for the people of Iran. Our number one objective is they will not possess nuclear weapons. If we can do it through negotiations and inspections, that is absolutely the desired way. If it needs to be done through military means to destroy their nuclear facilities and the industrial might of Iran, unfortunately, we will do that, too. We cannot have Iran threatening the energy supplies for the world forever. We cannot have an impregnable porcupine there. It's been the biggest source of murder, terrorism, and instability, not just in the Middle East, but in the world. One way or the other, we will get there. You mentioned enrichment. In the negotiations with Iran, we have repeatedly said—their claim, of course, is, well, we're enriching because we want to have a nuclear industry. Well, we've said to them, no problem at all. We would work with you to develop a nuclear power industry in Iran. We can supply enriched uranium fuel for those reactors. If your desire is commercial power for nuclear energy, there's no better partner in the world to have than the United States, just as we're doing with Saudi Arabia. But that's a completely different thing. And of course, the Iranian program has never been about commercial enrichment. They wouldn't bury that hundreds of feet underground and lie about it and deceive us about it. They have a weapons program. Our goal, we will prevent that weapons program from ever achieving success. The best route to get there is a negotiated agreement where they abandon a weapons program, they rejoin the community of peaceful nations, and, quite possibly, they develop civil nuclear power in cooperation with the United States to the betterment of everyone. But one way or the other, they will not have a nuclear weapon. We'll do one last question, just to make sure we get around everybody. Yes. Hi. Sarah Salem, Exchange Monitor. Just circling back to the Saudi 1-2-3 agreement, I know you had said that it's out of the question that Saudi Arabia would go through the uranium enrichment process. But what do you say to the—and I guess this would be a question for the Director General as well—that the Trump administration confirmed to Congress that the agreement would not require Saudi Arabia to adhere to IAEA's additional protocol for verification, and there were other nonproliferation standards that were not in the agreement that are referred to as the gold standard. So why is this agreement seemingly different from other 1-2-3 agreements? So very strong nonproliferation protocols in this agreement. Very strong. Bilaterally negotiated in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This additional protocol people hear about—I think the United States has two countries that we have a 1-2-3 agreement with the additional protocol. So that is one pathway, to have rigorous nonproliferation standards. But there are multiple others. No country has more rigorous nonproliferation standards than the United States of America. And this agreement has very rigorous, very clear, very inspection, trust-but-verify provisions that leave myself, the government of the United States, and our partners in Saudi Arabia very confident that this is a civilian program, will remain a program, and it will be verifiably a civilian program. And I'll turn it over to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who will lead the inspections and implementation of these protocols. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. Of course, our mission is to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. So the IAEA could never participate or endorse any type of agreement that would leave loopholes in this regard. You are correct in saying that there are different alternatives. But I can tell you, and of course, the bilateral agreement still has to come to us for consideration and approval by the Board of Governors, but we have been intensively working with Saudi Arabia, with the United States government. And what I can tell you is that the idea is that we will have a number of extra measures. I don't want to use the word additional, because the additional protocol, but it's going to be added layers of very stringent verification that are going to be focused, zeroing in on a number of activities that are going to be taking place when the agreement comes into force, of course, in Saudi Arabia, and that are going to be giving us, my inspectors, because they are the ones that are going to be out there in the field checking that there is no deviation, that there are no undeclared activities, and so on. So we are confident that when the whole process, of course, you have a process, and this is in the domain of the United States, when all of that is finished, it will come to the IAEA. The Director General of the IAEA would never put forward an agreement that would not guarantee non-proliferation, and this is the case for this agreement. Thank you all so much. We are out of time. We have to go to another event. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate you being here. Thank you. Thank you.