Key points
- Korea's $350B pledge has spent nothing yet
- A Texas power plant is the leading first-project candidate
- Korea wants a real stake in Westinghouse
- Korea calls the Alaska pipeline high-risk
About a year ago, Korea promised to invest $350 billion in the United States, and in return the US agreed to cut the tariffs on Korean goods. Almost none of that money has been spent. The two sides are still fighting over the terms, and three projects are holding up the rest, a power plant in Texas, a stake in the nuclear company Westinghouse, and a natural gas pipeline in Alaska.
What Korea actually promised
The $350 billion comes in two parts. About $150 billion is for shipbuilding, where Korea helps revive American shipyards. The other $200 billion is the piece everyone is fighting over. Korea calls it strategic investment, which means Korea supplies the money and the US president chooses the projects it goes into.
Two things make that harder than it sounds. Korea can put in only $20 billion a year, and the returns lean toward the American side. On each project the profit is split evenly until Korea earns back what it put in, with interest, and after that the US keeps 90 percent and Korea keeps 10. Japan, whose $550 billion package is the one Seoul keeps getting measured against, faces no yearly cap at all.
Korea also argues the two deals aren't the same underneath. Japan's minister has said only 1 to 2 percent of its $550 billion is real direct investment, with the rest made up of loans and guarantees, while Korea's package forces far more actual cash into projects that can lose money. And a year in, Korea has spent nothing, while Japan is already building, an Ohio gas plant and small nuclear reactors in Tennessee and Alabama among them, Today Korea (투데이코리아) reported.
The Texas power plant
The leading first-project candidate, the one Korea calls investment number one, is a giant gas-fired power plant in La Salle County in southern Texas, built to feed the AI data centers and chip factories going up across the state. The cost has climbed to about $22 billion. Korean media have identified three companies as potential participants, Samsung C&T (삼성물산) as the main builder, Hyundai E&C (현대건설) on construction, and Doosan Enerbility (두산에너빌리티, 034020) as a turbine supplier.
The fight here is about guarantees. Korea wanted the deal to promise that its own companies get the contracts and that someone is locked in to buy the plant's power. Washington would only agree to try, not to guarantee it, Seoul Shinmun (서울신문) reported. Without those promises, Korea is being asked to put up the cash and carry the risk while the returns stay uncertain.
A stake in Westinghouse
The second project is nuclear, and it's the biggest of the three. The plan would build up to eight reactors in the US, six on Westinghouse's design and two on Korea's own APR1400, which would be the first Korean-designed reactors on American soil. At about $15 billion each, nuclear could take up as much as $120 billion of the $200 billion.
What Korea wants in return is an ownership stake in Westinghouse, the American nuclear firm. Korean media have reported that Korea is seeking a 15 to 20 percent stake and a board seat, while the US side has discussed a smaller stake without board representation. The value of any stake is hard to pin down in any case, because Westinghouse, owned by Canada's Cameco and the investment firm Brookfield, is heading for a stock market listing, and estimates of the company's worth run from about $15 billion to more than $50 billion.
Any Korean-designed reactors would likely involve Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (한국수력원자력), a subsidiary of Korea Electric Power (한국전력, 015760), the national utility, so the nuclear push runs through companies Korean investors follow closely. The ministry says the nuclear-project details, including any Westinghouse investment, have not been finalized.
The Alaska gas pipeline
The third project is the one Korea wants least. It is a $44 billion plan to run a pipeline about 1,300 kilometers, or some 800 miles, from gas fields in northern Alaska down to a port in the south, where the gas would be chilled into liquid and shipped to Asia. President Trump has championed the project for years and wants Korea and Japan to help pay for it and buy the gas.
Korea's own energy minister has been blunt about it. Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan (김정관) called Alaska LNG a "high-risk business" and told lawmakers the costs make it hard to be sure the project makes commercial sense, etoday (이투데이) reported. The obvious Korean partner is the state-run Korea Gas Corp (한국가스공사, 036460), but the company is already deep in debt, and Korea has tried to be named in the deal without promising a firm commitment.
There's also a math problem. The three projects would add up to about $186 billion at the figures now being discussed. That would leave little room inside the $200 billion pool and could still conflict with Korea's $20 billion annual limit if the spending is concentrated in a few years. That squeeze is much of why the Alaska piece is the hardest to settle.
Why nothing has moved yet
A year after the promise, not a single dollar of the $200 billion has actually been spent. A planned signing of the formal agreement and a briefing to Korea's National Assembly, both expected in mid-September, were pushed back, with officials floating the following week instead, etoday (이투데이) reported. The mood has also soured since a raid last year on a Hyundai plant site in Georgia, where US agents detained hundreds of Korean workers, and several Korean firms have slowed or paused their own US plans.
Min Jung-hoon (민정훈), a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, put Korea's position simply. "If the projects don't make business sense, Korean companies won't invest," he told Today Korea. "Korea has to be cautious. President Trump wants quick decisions, but the two sides are far apart."
The comments from Kim Jung-kwan and Min Jung-hoon are translated from Korean.
