US taps Asian trade funds for new nuclear

At a cabinet meeting at the White House, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the proceeds of trade agreements with South Korea and Japan would be used to expand nuclear power in the US. This involves pledged cash investment in the US of $750bn – $550bn billion from Japan and $200bn from South Korea. The agreements were concluded during and in the wake of President Donald Trump’s Asian tour in October.

Lutnick’s remarks came as Cabinet members attending the meeting took turns highlighting their accomplishments to date. Discussing how the investment from Korea and Japan would be used, he noted: “For example, we will start with nuclear power.” He added: “We need to have a nuclear arsenal for power generation in the United States. So we will build it with the hundreds of billions of dollars funded by Japan and South Korea.” He said: “We will build here, and the cash flow will be divided 50-50.”

In its memorandum of understanding signed with Japan, the US specified the construction of large NPPs and small modular reactors (SMRs) as concrete projects. A joint fact sheet released in late October on US-Japan investment stated that Japan would support up to $332 billion in energy-related infrastructure, including large-scale and small modular nuclear reactors, transmission grids, substations and power networks.

In November, when Korean President Lee Jae Myung announced the conclusion of trade and security negotiations, he said Korea and the US would establish cooperative partnerships spanning traditional strategic industries such as shipbuilding and nuclear power plants to high-tech sectors such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

Trump’s May Executive Order, Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base, set a goal of beginning construction on 10 new large nuclear reactors by 2030 as part of a long-term plan to quadruple the US nuclear power generation capacity from the current 95-100 GWe to 400 GWe by 2050. Building 10 new nuclear plants is estimated to cost at least $75bn, much of which is expected to come from Korean and Japanese investments.

At the start of the cabinet, Trump criticised Korea and Japan, implying that they had taken advantage of the US before he imposed tariffs. “I imposed historic tariffs that are now bringing in so much money that we’ve never… nobody’s ever seen anything like it,” he. “And countries that were ripping us off, including allies, but they were ripping us off for years. I won’t use the names, I won’t mention Japan. I refuse to mention Korea. I will not mention names, but they were ripping us off like nobody’s ever been ripped off before and taking horrible advantage of your country, but now we’re making a lot of money.”

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