Trump secures $150 billion shipbuilding investment from South Korea in exchange for tariff cuts

[Financial News] Donald Trump said on the 6th (local time) that he had demanded and secured large-scale investment in the U.S. from South Korea in exchange for lower tariffs.
In a speech at the “Sparrows Point” shipyard, a defense-industry facility in Baltimore, Maryland, Trump said, “South Korea recently provided us with $150 billion (about 200 trillion won),” adding, “All that money is going into shipbuilding, and this was a way for South Korea to get the tariffs imposed on its products lowered.”
He went on to say, “They wanted to lower tariffs, and I said, ‘You have to pay for that,’” making clear that he had secured South Korean investment in the U.S. by leveraging the differentiated application of tariffs.
Trump also directly referred to Hanwha Group’s acquisition of Philly Shipyard (Hanwha Philly Shipyard), saying that “Hanwha is investing several billion dollars to revive the historic shipyard in Philadelphia.”
The remarks are seen as referring to the Korea-U.S. Shipbuilding Cooperation Project, MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again), which allocates $150 billion to shipbuilding out of the total $350 billion in investment South Korea is pursuing in the U.S. under its trade agreement with the United States.
For the remaining $200 billion in investment projects, the two countries have designated construction of the Encinal combined-cycle gas power plant in Texas as the first project, and agreed to discuss later the construction of eight large nuclear power units and the Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, among others.
Trump, however, is pressing South Korea to treat the $50 billion investment in the Alaska LNG project as essentially settled. On the 2nd, he had already taken a hard line in negotiations, saying, “Tell them that if they don’t reach an agreement soon, I’ll double the bill (for South Korea).”
In U.S. political circles, the view is that Trump is actively promoting South Korean investment in the U.S. to tout the achievements of his tariff policy ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. A major factor cited in particular for his focus on the Alaska LNG project is that Alaska is one of the key battlegrounds in this midterm election.


[email protected] Yoon Jae-jun Reporter