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Donald Trump has said he has given South Korea permission to build nuclear-powered submarines in Philadelphia, in an announcement that could rattle China as the US president prepares to meet Xi Jinping.
“South Korea will be building its Nuclear Powered Submarine in the Philadelphia Shipyards, right here in the good ol’ U.S.A.,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform on Thursday during his visit to the US ally and ahead of a summit with President Xi.
Trump said the US-South Korea military alliance was “stronger than ever” so he had “given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine”.
“A great trip, with a great President of South Korea!” Trump wrote the morning after holding a meeting with President Lee Jae Myung where the two sealed a trade deal to lower tariffs on car exports in exchange for investments in the US.
The White House did not elaborate on what Trump was proposing. It was unclear whether he was saying Washington would allow South Korea to process fuel for nuclear-powered submarines, or whether the US would provide the technology — previously only shared with the UK and Australia.
The US has previously refused to allow South Korea to process nuclear fuel because of concerns about proliferation under the terms of a treaty between the allies that Washington says precludes such activity.
But ahead of asummit with Trump in South Korea on Wednesday, Lee told the US president that “if you allow the supply of fuel for nuclear-powered submarines, we will build several submarines equipped with conventional weapons using our own technology”.
Lee said nuclear-powered submarines would enable Seoul to reduce the burden on US forces, in a nod to Trump’s desire for allies to shoulder more of the responsibility for their own defence.
Trump last week gave a strong endorsement to Aukus, the trilateral deal with the UK and Australia signed during Joe Biden’s administration that will enable Canberra to obtain a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines — a programme that has sparked intense criticism from Beijing.
Zack Cooper, an Asia security expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said some in South Korea had “long contemplated” acquiring the submarines but the idea that they would be built in the US had never been seriously considered. The shipyard in Philadelphia has no experience of constructing nuclear-powered vessels.
“This will accelerate the debate in Tokyo about whether to acquire nuclear-powered submarines as part of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s new defence build-up,” said Cooper. “It will also generate concerns in Beijing, given that several US allies in Asia may be upgrading to nuclear-powered submarine fleets simultaneously.”
South Korea’s Hanwha conglomerate last year acquired the Philly Shipyard in Pennsylvania. Alex Wong, Hanwha’s chief strategy officer and previously Trump’s deputy national security adviser, said the company “stands ready to support with our advanced shipbuilding scale”.
“Through Hanwha Philly Shipyard and other investments and partnerships, a revived American shipbuilding sector will benefit US workers, foster prosperity for both the United States and Korea, and enhance our nations’ shared security,” Wong said.
Shares in Hanwha’s shipbuilding subsidiary Hanwha Ocean were up more than 12 per cent after the first hour of trading on Thursday.
Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute think-tank in Seoul, said South Korean ambitions to build its own nuclear-powered submarines dated back as far as the 1990s. But thosecalls had grown stronger in recent years as the perceived threats from North Korea and China grew, he added, just as confidence in US protection had waned.
In March, North Korean state media released images of leader Kim Jong Un inspecting the hull of his country’s nuclear-powered submarine, triggering concern in Seoul that its diesel-powered vessels could prove insufficient.
Naval tensions between Seoul and Beijing have also mounted in recent years amid an apparent Chinese campaign to lay claim to disputed maritime territory by building steel structures in the Yellow Sea.
