President Donald Trump announced from the White House a South Korean investment package of up to $200 billion in American energy, centered on the construction of eight large nuclear reactors on U.S. soil. It is the largest single foreign financial commitment ever made to the American nuclear sector in a single announcement.
The core of the plan is called Project Power: a $120 billion framework — approximately $100 billion in construction costs and $20 billion as a contingency reserve — intended to fund six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors and two APR1400 units of South Korean design. The framework will be signed by both governments alongside Westinghouse Electric, Korea Electric Power Corporation, and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power. The two sides also discussed an advance of up to $10 billion by year’s end to secure long-lead components: reactor vessels, steam generators, and primary circuit pumps.
The deal is a direct outgrowth of the trade agreement struck between Washington and Seoul last year, which reduced U.S. tariffs on South Korean exports to 15%. Trump spelled out the mechanism plainly: a portion of those tariff revenues flow back as direct investment on American soil. The broader package also includes a nearly 6.5-gigawatt natural gas power plant in Texas, valued at around $22 billion, and a stake in the Alaska LNG project — the 1,300-kilometer pipeline that would link North Slope gas fields to the Nikiski export terminal, with the aim of shipping liquefied natural gas to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
On the nuclear side, the details are the most fully developed. The eight reactors would be built in three phases distributed across different U.S. sites. The decision to pair the AP1000 format — already operating in China and under construction in Georgia — with the APR1400, a proven technology deployed in South Korea and the UAE, follows a clear strategic rationale: diversifying the supply chain and accelerating timelines by reducing dependence on a single reactor model. For the United States, this would mean adding as much nuclear capacity in one stroke as has been built over the past two decades.
The projects still need to be finalized and require approval from the South Korean parliament. Uncertainty remains over the Alaska LNG component: Seoul’s trade minister noted that Trump’s announcement “went beyond what had been agreed” regarding participation in the pipeline project. The nuclear plan, by contrast, stands on firmer ground — the financial commitment is structured, the reactor designs are identified, and the companies involved are already operational. If approvals come through on schedule, construction on the first reactors could break ground before the end of the decade, redrawing the map of American electricity generation.
