President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea awards US President Donald Trump with the Grand Order of the Mugunghwa, Korea’s highest nationwide order, and a reproduction of a golden crown from the Silla Kingdom at a welcome ceremony held on the Gyeongju Nationwide Museum on Oct. 29, 2025, forward of their bilateral summit. (courtesy of the presidential workplace)
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and US President Donald Trump reached a dramatic settlement on commerce and safety throughout their 87-minute summit on Wednesday. The ultimate deal reached by the 2 leaders throughout their face-to-face assembly in Gyeongju marks the tip of a tense three months of wrangling over the main points of Korea’s preliminary pledge in July to take a position US$350 billion within the US as a part of negotiations for tariff reduction.
The US agreed to a few of South Korea’s phrases relating to the funding fund, accepting US$150 billion — 43% of the promised funding — within the type of Korean firms’ investments in US shipbuilding operations. The remaining US$200 billion in money investments can be paid in yearly installments of as much as US$20 billion a yr.
The presidential workplace held a briefing that night on the expanded luncheon between the 2 leaders to announce the end result of the safety and commerce talks. Kim Yong-beom, the presidential workplace’s chief secretary for coverage, revealed in the course of the briefing that US tariffs on Korean items will stay at 15%, as the 2 events agreed to on July 30.
“Tariffs on autos and auto components can be reduce from 25% to fifteen%,” Kim mentioned.
Relating to sectoral tariffs, Korea can be granted most-favored-nation standing for prescription drugs, whereas pure assets not produced inside the US will face zero tariffs. Korean semiconductors will reportedly be topic to tariffs that won’t put them at an obstacle in comparison with Korea’s greatest rival, Taiwan.
What allowed for a long-awaited conclusion to the tariff negotiations that had dragged on because the preliminary settlement reached on July 30 was the US partially acquiescing to Korea’s calls for on the character and administration of the funding fund.
“The US$350 billion can be break up into US$200 billion in money and US$150 billion in shipbuilding cooperation,” Kim, the coverage chief, mentioned. “Since we prioritized the necessity for safeguards to attenuate results on the foreign exchange market, we capped the money installments at US$20 billion a yr.”
Income can be divided 50/50 earlier than the principal is recouped, however which may be adjusted sooner or later.
US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung head to their summit location following a welcome reception on the Gyeongju Nationwide Museum’s latest addition on Oct. 29, 2025. (Kim Tae-hyeong/Hankyoreh)
“We achieved stable outcomes by confirming the US’ readiness to cooperate on numerous strategic points to modernize the South Korea-US alliance,” Wi Sung-lac, the presidential workplace’s nationwide safety adviser, commented on the end result of safety talks. Wi emphasised how the 2 leaders reached an understanding relating to Korea’s pursuit of creating nuclear-powered submarines.
In response to Wi, when Lee requested that the US enable Korea to acquire gasoline for nuclear-powered submarines throughout his opening assertion on the summit, Trump “acknowledged the modifications within the political panorama, together with North Korea’s development of nuclear submarines, require South Korea to pursue nuclear-powered submarine capabilities,” and “agreed to pursue follow-up consultations.”
Lee additionally requested that Trump be attentive to South Korea’s curiosity in uranium enrichment and nuclear gasoline reprocessing applied sciences for peaceable functions. This means that the South Korea-US nuclear settlement might quickly be topic to revisions.
“After we have a look at the larger image, I’d say that, realistically, we made one of the best out of the state of affairs. We averted the worst-case situation of sending shocks to the overseas change market,” assessed Kim Yang-hee, a professor of economics and finance at Daegu College.
“I believe we will tentatively appraise the deal because it supplies us with a greater final result than the US-Japan deal,” she added.
By Um Ji-won, workers reporter; Shin Hyeong-cheol, workers reporter; Yu Ha-yeong, workers reporter; Park Su-ji, workers reporter
Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]
