Samsung's Lee Jae-yong Departs for Washington... Supporting Korea-US Tariff Negotiations

[Financial News] Lee Jae-yong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, has embarked on a trip to the United States to support the trade negotiations with the US, which are being conducted as a last-minute all-out effort. This is the first confirmed external schedule 12 days after the Supreme Court's acquittal on the 'Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries unfair merger allegations' on the 17th.
Chairman Lee arrived at Gimpo Airport at around 3:50 PM on the 29th and then departed for Washington, USA. It is reported that when asked by reporters about the purpose of his visit to the US, Chairman Lee only replied "Hello" before entering the departure hall.
Chairman Lee is expected to propose expanding semiconductor investments in the US and technological cooperation in the advanced AI semiconductor sector as a negotiation card on our side, three days before the US mutual tariffs take effect. Chairman Lee's return schedule has not been confirmed. 
Samsung Electronics, which operates a foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) plant in Austin, Texas, has decided to invest more than 37 billion dollars (about 54 trillion won) in local semiconductor production bases in the US by 2030. Accordingly, a foundry plant is being built in Taylor, Texas, aiming to start operations next year.
On the previous day, a record-breaking foundry supply contract worth about 23 trillion won was signed with Tesla, and starting next year, the Taylor plant will produce Tesla's next-generation AI chip AI6. The AI6 to be produced by Samsung Electronics is known to be manufactured with a 2nm (nanometer, 1nm = 1 billionth of a meter) process as Tesla's autonomous driving AI chip. Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, emphasized again on his social networking service (SNS), "Samsung has been allowed to participate in maximizing Tesla's manufacturing efficiency," adding, "This is a very important decision, and I will personally inspect the production line to accelerate the progress."
The business community believes that this contract could work favorably in the Korea-US negotiations as it aligns with the US government's semiconductor industry revival policy and investment attraction strategy. 
soup@fnnews.com Im Subin, Kwon Junho reporters