The Peninsula

Q4 2025 U.S.-Korea Trade, Investment, and Diplomacy Ledger

Q4 2024 was the first full quarter where the new U.S.-South Korea trade agenda hit the ground. A 15 percent tariff rate went into effect, a USD 350 billion investment commitment was formalized, and both sides started turning months of negotiations into concrete deals.

The October 31 strategic investment memorandum of understanding (MOU), which the U.S. and Korea signed at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Gyeongju (and subsequently released publicly on November 14), laid more groundwork for the large investment package originally agreed to back in July. Meanwhile, among other investments, the retinue of U.S. business leaders accompanying the U.S. president to the APEC Summit allowed deals involving AI and advanced GPU chip supply to follow suit, while later in the month, a Korean firm subsidiary (Crucible Metals) took advantage of a USD 210 million CHIPS and Science Act award to help build out the U.S. critical and strategic mineral supply of gallium, bismuth, germanium, indium, antimony, tellurium, cadmium, palladium, copper, silver, gold, zinc, and other materials used in semiconductor production.

Korea’s participation in multilateral fora also brought in greater responsibilities for the country. After concluding its presidency of the UN Security Council on October 1, Korea participated in the Group of Twenty (G20) Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting. Korea also attended the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting (of which Korea will assume the presidency in 2028) and the Group of Seven (G7) Foreign and Finance Ministers’ Meetings, before joining the inaugural “Pax Silica” initiative led by the United States on December 12. Along similar lines, the December 3–4 Wassenaar Arrangement Plenary in Vienna, Austria, announced Korea as the chair for 2026, with Korea’s Ambassador to Austria Ham Sang Wook as president.

Both the investments and diplomatic meetings and negotiations between the countries in Q4 help set the stage for further alignment on economic security and cross-border trade into Q1, as Washington and Seoul make progress on implementing the commitments in their strategic investment MOU and July 30 trade deal. Follow-through in any of the sectors in which they made bilateral investments will likely set the tone for commitments to investments going forward.

Major Q4 2025 U.S.-Korea Investments, Deals, and Partnerships

Date	U.S. Entity	Korean Entity	Project	Location
December 22	U.S. Navy	Hanwha	President Donald Trump announces the U.S. Navy will work with Hanwha on FF(X) frigate class as part of “Golden Fleet” initiative.	United States
December 18	Boeing	Hanwha Systems	Contract  to supply Electronic Large Area Display (ELAD) to Boeing F-15K (Korean Air Force) and F-15EX (U.S. Air Force) cockpits.	N/A
December 17	U.S. Department of Defense	Korea Zinc; Crucible Metals LLC	Korea Zinc grants rights to the U.S. government to acquire stakes in operator of “U.S. Smelter.”	Clarksville, Tennessee
December 15	U.S. Navy Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP); Military Sealift Command (MSC)	HJ Shipbuilding & Construction (HJSC)	Mid-term availability (MTA) contract for MRO of the USNS Amelia Earhart.	Busan, Korea
December 15	U.S. Department of Defense; U.S. Department of Commerce	Korea Zinc	Strategic partnership to jointly invest in the construction of $7.4 billion large-scale “U.S. Smelter” for critical minerals.	Clarksville, Tennessee
December 5	University of Utah, Center for Medical Innovation	Yonsei University College of Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Device Industry	MOU to strengthen collaboration in global medical device development.	N/A
December 3	General Dynamics NASSCO	DSEC Co.; Samsung Heavy Industries	Tri-Party memorandum of agreement for shipbuilding projects in the U.S. market.	United States
December 1	SimonMed Imaging	Lunit	Strategic partnership to deploy large-scale custom foundation models for chest X-ray (CXR) report generation.	United States
November 26	DigitalBridge Group	KT Corporation	MOU to collaborate on next-generation AI data centers in Korea.	Korea
November 26	Major investor-owned utility	LS Electric	USD 312 million contract to supply high voltage transformers in the United States.	United States
November 19	N/A	CJ Olive Young	Announcement to open its first U.S. store in California in May 2026.	Pasadena, California
November 19	N/A	YuYu Pharma	Establishment of U.S. subsidiary through USD 4.5 million investment to target pet pharmaceutical and health supplement markets.	United States
November 17	N/A	LG Electronics	Opening of SKS Chicago Showroom to showcase SKS home appliances.	Chicago, Illinois
November 17	N/A	LS Electric	USD 76 million transformer supply contract to supply power to AI data centers in the United States until 2028.	United States
November 13	Etibus Group	Amazon Web Services	Strategic Collaboration Agreement to accelerate digital innovation.	N/A
November 13	N/A	LG Chem	USD 2.5 billion cathode material supply contract for U.S. electric vehicle-related companies.	United States
November 12	Anduril	HD Hyundai Heavy Industries	Strategic collaboration agreement to develop autonomous surface vehicles.	N/A
November 12	N/A	Rebellions	Announcement for the establishment of U.S. subsidiary office.	United States
November 3	N/A	Iljin Electric	Announcement that it is entering the 500-kilovolt ultra-high-voltage transformer market in California.	California, United States
October 31	NVIDIA	NAVER Cloud	MOU for the joint development of a physical AI platform.	N/A
October 31	NVIDIA	Yonsei University, Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)	Partnership for joint research on Artificial Intelligence-Radio Access Networks (AI-RAN).	N/A
October 31	NVIDIA	Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT)	Mutual cooperation agreement between NVIDIA and MSIT to strengthen Korea’s AI ecosystem.	Korea
October 30	Cleveland Cliffs	POSCO	Cleveland Cliffs announces POSCO as its MOU counterparty from September 17 MOU.	N/A
October 30	Solid Power	Samsung SDI	Joint Evaluation Agreement for Sold Power to partner with Samsung SDI and BMW for development of all-solid-state battery (ASSB) vehicle.	N/A
October 30	NVIDIA	Samsung	Partnership to build AI factory in Korea for Samsung with 50,0000 NVIDIA GPUs.	Korea
October 30	NVIDIA	SK Group	Partnership to build AI factory in Korea serving SK subsidiaries with more than 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs.	Korea
October 30	NVIDIA	Hyundai Motor Group	Collaboration to develop physical AI industry in Korea, using NVIDIA Blackwell AI chips.	Korea
October 26	HII	HD Hyundai Heavy Industries	Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to collaborate on shipbuilding.	N/A
October 24	Fermi America	Hyundai E&C	Design contract for the construction of four large-scale nuclear power plants in the United States.	United States
October 23	GE Aerospace	Hanwha	Agreement for Hanwha to purchase aircraft engine kits from GE Aerospace.	N/A
October 22	Tesla	Samsung Electronics	Announcement by Tesla CEO Elon Musk that Samsung will co-produce Tesla’s AI5 chipset with TSMC.	N/A
October 14	General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI)	Hanwha Aerospace	Agreement to co-develop short take-off and landing (STOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).	N/A
October 13	N/A	Doosan Enerbility	Contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines to a major U.S. tech company.	United States
October 8	Honeywell	LS Electric	Strategic partnership agreement to co-develop energy storage systems for data centers in the United States.	United States
October 1	OpenAI	Sk Hynix; Samsung	Strategic partnership for Samsung and SK Hynix to join OpenAI’s Stargate Initiative.	United States

 

Q4 2025 Trade and Diplomacy Timeline 

December 16                                    Director-General for Diplomatic Strategy and Intelligence Jeong Yeon-doo holds a consultation with Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Kevin Kim in Seoul on the implementation of the U.S.-South Korea Joint Fact Sheet. 

December 15–16                           South Korea’s Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yun-cheol attends the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting in Washington, DC, discussing Korean domestic and foreign economic policy issues with G20 counterparts.

December 12                                    The United States holds the inaugural “Pax Silica” Summit in Washington, DC, convening Australia, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, with guest contributions from Canada, the European Union, Taiwan, and the OECD. 

December 10                                    The United States and South Korea hold the tenth bilateral Senior Economic Dialogue in Washington, DC, following up on measures discussed at the bilateral summit in August, as well as cooperation plans for strategic industries. 

December 8                                       Minister Koo virtually attends the G7 Finance Ministers’ Meeting, discussing export controls and measures to enhance the stability of critical mineral supply chains.

December 3–4                                 South Korea attends the twenty-ninth plenary meeting of the Wassenaar Arrangement in Vienna, Austria, where it is announced as the 2026 chair, with Korean Ambassador Ham serving as

November 14                                    The United States and South Korea release the official text of the strategic investment MOU for USD 350 billion South Korean investment in the United States, following the Joint Fact Sheet on November 13.

November 11–12                            South Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun attends the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Niagara Falls, Canada. He meets with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and requests an expedited release of a joint U.S.-South Korea summit document on trade and security, following the October 29 leader-level summit.

November 4                                       U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and South Korea’s Minister of National Defense Ahn Gyu-back hold the fifty-seventh U.S.-Korea Security Consultative Meeting (SCM). They discuss extended deterrence and alliance coordination in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. The two sides agree to maintain a strong combined defense posture and to expand cooperation in the defense industry, maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO), advanced technologies, and joint readiness. They also agree to hold the first meeting of the U.S.-South Korea Defense Science and Technology Executive Committee (DSTC) in the near future.

October 29                                          President Donald Trump and President Lee Jae Myung hold an official summit on the sidelines of the 2025 APEC Leaders’ Meeting, announcing the official conclusion of tariff deal negotiations. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick also meets with South Korea’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Resources Kim Jung-kwan as part of the U.S.-South Korea business roundtable. The United States, South Korea, and Japan hold a trilateral foreign ministerial meeting to discuss trilateral economic cooperation and shared cooperation on North Korea. 

October 24                                          Foreign Minister Cho meets with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp as part of the latter’s visit to Seoul to discuss expanded economic cooperation between Korea and the state of Georgia.

October 23                                          Tennessee Governor Bill Lee attends a meeting hosted by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) while leading a Tennessee government delegation to Korea. In attendance are Hyundai Motor Company Vice President Kim Dong-wook, Metabiomed Chairman Oh Seok-song, YG-Won Chairman Song Ho-geun, Exicon Chairman Choi Myung-bae, and members of the U.S.-Korea Economic Council.            

October 22                                          The United States and South Korea hold the second meeting of the U.S.-ROK Business Travel and Visa Working Group to discuss efficient operations for South Korean company investments in the United States.

October 20                                          Montana Governor Greg Gianforte meets with Korean government officials and business leaders, including Prime Minister Minseok Kim, Minister of Trade Yeo Han-koo, and Foreign Minister Cho in Seoul, during his trip to South Korea and Japan.                      

October 16                                          Commerce Secretary Lutnick holds trade talks with Industry Minister Kim alongside Chief Presidential Secretary for Policy Kim Yong-beom and Trade Minister Yeo, as part of the Korean government delegation to Washington.

 October 2                                             Defense Minister Ahn meets with U.S. Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll in Seoul to discuss the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and alliance cooperation. They discuss maintaining a strong combined defense posture in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and expanding cooperation in science and technology, maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO), and unmanned systems.

 October 1                                             President Lee appoints former Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha as the South Korean Ambassador to the United States. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance also release the full text of a Foreign Exchange Policy Agreement following discussions between U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent and South Korea’s Finance Minister Koo in September. South Korea concludes its term as president of the UN Security Council.

 

Tom Ramage is Economic Policy Analyst at the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI). Soobeen Park is a Research Intern at KEI. The views expressed are the authors’ alone.

Feature image from the Republic of Korea Flickr Account.

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