[Anchor]
U.S. President Donald Trump has just directly announced South Korea's plan to invest in the United States. While the contents do not differ significantly from what was reported through foreign media yesterday (September 30), let's connect to Washington to find out more.
Correspondent Lee Hanseok, could you give us the overview first?
[Reporter]
As major foreign media previously reported, U.S. President Trump announced via a White House briefing just moments ago that South Korea will invest in the Alaska LNG project.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who attended the briefing, also stated that South Korea will invest more than $50 billion in the Alaska LNG project.
Trump added that South Korea will also invest in building a 6-gigawatt combined-cycle gas-fired power plant in Texas and constructing eight large-scale nuclear reactors.
The Alaska LNG project is a massive undertaking to transport natural gas from the North Slope through a pipeline of approximately 1,300 kilometers to southern Alaska for liquefaction.
The plan is to export LNG long-term to Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, but major energy companies like ExxonMobil pulled out 10 years ago due to a lack of commercial viability.
[Anchor]
The briefing was delayed a bit from its scheduled time, wasn't it?
[Reporter]
The briefing was originally scheduled for 4:30 AM today, Korea time, but it began belatedly about an hour past the scheduled time.
It has not yet been confirmed whether the delay was due to prolonged internal coordination over specific briefing details or other private schedule conflicts.
[Anchor]
Didn't our government say that it needs to review the commercial viability of the Alaska LNG development project further?
[Reporter]
From President Trump's perspective, this seems tied to political calculations to maximize domestic economic achievements with the November midterm elections right around the corner.
It is likely an intention to highlight that he has attracted massive capital and manufacturing jobs from an ally amid pressures from inflation and high interest rates.
Our government previously stated that participation in the Alaska LNG project has not yet been finalized and that it would decide whether to participate after weighing commercial rationality.
It appears that consultations with our government have not yet been fully wrapped up, but under the memorandum of understanding signed with the U.S. last year and the Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Special Act, investment destinations are to be selected by the U.S. president following consultations between the two countries.
Therefore, it is true that it would have been difficult to block President Trump even if he made a unilateral announcement.
Moving forward, the key will be how to coordinate the investment amounts and project scale through detailed follow-up consultations with the U.S. government.
(Live reporting: Oh Jung-shik, Video editing: Lee Seung-yeol)
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