President Trump on Wednesday unveiled the first projects under South Korea's $200 billion U.S. investment commitment: a gas-fired power complex in Texas, a framework for eight large nuclear reactors and the long-delayed Alaska LNG pipeline. Speaking in the Oval Office with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, he called the package "one of the largest energy infrastructure investments in American history."
The commitment grew out of last year's trade agreement, under which Seoul pledged $350 billion in U.S. investment, $150 billion of it for shipbuilding and $200 billion for strategic projects, while Washington lowered tariffs on most South Korean goods to 15 percent. Trump said South Korea would invest up to $200 billion in the three projects, and he credited his tariffs with making the announcement possible. "For doing that, I reduced their tariffs to 15%. But they paid to get them reduced," he said.
Lutnick put figures on each piece. He said more than $50 billion would go into the Alaska project and $120 billion, including a $20 billion contingency fund, into eight nuclear plants in states including Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina and Kentucky, and he valued the Texas plant at more than $22 billion. The Associated Press reported the Alaska investment at roughly $54 billion.
Seoul describes the same package more cautiously. The South Korean government regards only the Texas project as finalized and has left the reactors and the pipeline for further discussion. The Texas complex was chosen as the first formal investment under the agreement after clearing the required committee reviews and being reported to the National Assembly, The Korea Herald reported, and together the three projects are expected to take up most of the $200 billion.
Known as Project Star, the plant is designed as a 6,472-megawatt combined-cycle complex in Encinal, Texas, supplying power directly to nearby data centers. South Korea will provide the full investment, while Related Companies and NextEra Energy lead the project and Texas-based Lewis Energy Group provides the land, natural gas and water infrastructure. A first phase of 1,952 megawatts is scheduled to begin commercial operation in 2029, and the full complex is expected online in 2032. Kim Jung-kwan, South Korea's industry minister, has said the plant should bring in more than twice the original investment in nominal terms over the recovery period. "Our calculations show that recovery should not be a problem," he said.
That confidence is not universal in Seoul. When Kim reported the selection to a National Assembly committee on Sept. 22, opposition lawmakers from the People Power Party questioned whether it would be profitable because no power purchase agreement had been secured, and one asked who would build the Texas data centers meant to buy the electricity. The plant is to run under a tolling-style contract, in which data center operators pay a fixed charge for contracted capacity and bear costs such as fuel, and that contract is expected to be finalized in 2027.
The nuclear piece, called Project Power, is a framework rather than a construction order. It envisions two Korean-designed APR1400 reactors and six Westinghouse AP1000s, with about $100 billion for construction and $20 billion held in reserve, and the APR1400s would be the first Korean-designed commercial reactors built in the United States. The framework does not authorize all eight reactors, The Korea Herald reported. Sites, ownership and schedules are still undecided, and each plant will need its own commercial assessment and approval in Seoul. The two countries also agreed to cooperate on an advance payment of up to $10 billion by year-end for long-lead components such as reactor vessels and steam generators, subject to a commercial review and South Korean legal and parliamentary procedures. Korean investors, including the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, will seek a combined stake of at least 5 percent but below 10 percent in Westinghouse.
For Alaska, the two governments have agreed only to review South Korean participation. Project North would carry North Slope gas through an 807-mile pipeline to an export terminal in southern Alaska. Officials at the event said the pipeline would take three years to build, with exports beginning two years later, though that timeline depends on financing coming through in full. Trump said it would create up to 12,000 construction jobs and lower energy costs for Alaska households. Kim has been more guarded. "It is true that the project has a weaker commercial case," he said, arguing that South Korea's vulnerable gas supply routes still made it worth examining. "We have agreed with the United States that we will not proceed unless the project is commercially viable."
If Seoul does join, Washington has offered tariff reductions on materials such as steel, long-term purchase terms and priority access to the gas. The AP reported that it was not clear how quickly South Korea's government would approve the project or how much it planned to spend.
Under the terms Seoul has described, the investments will run through an umbrella company, with a separate subsidiary for each project. Returns will be split evenly until South Korea recovers its principal and interest across the portfolio, after which 90 percent goes to the United States, and the agreement makes Seoul's limits of $20 billion a year and $200 billion in total legally binding.
Sullivan, a longtime champion of the pipeline who faces a competitive challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola in November, called it the project "that our state has been working on to try to get done for almost a half century" and said it would deliver low-cost energy to Alaskans. Trump thanked him by name for "getting this deal done." It was the second time in three days that the president had used the Oval Office to spotlight foreign investment tied to his trade policy in a state with a close Senate race, the AP noted, following Monday's announcement of a $15 billion steel plant in Iowa.