U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he has granted South Korea approval to build a nuclear-powered submarine, a landmark move that would make Seoul one of the few nations in the world operating such vessels.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the submarine would be constructed in a Philadelphia shipyard, where South Korean companies have ramped up investment.
“I have given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine, rather than the old fashioned, and far less nimble, diesel powered Submarines that they have now,” Trump wrote.
The announcement came during Trump’s visit to South Korea, where he met President Lee Jae Myung and finalized a long-discussed trade deal on Wednesday. Trump also said Seoul had agreed to buy large quantities of U.S. oil and gas as part of the broader partnership.
South Korea’s Industry Ministry said it had not been involved in detailed discussions about the submarine project, leaving questions about how the propulsion technology, which only a handful of countries possess, would be obtained.
The U.S. has historically shared nuclear submarine technology only with Britain, beginning in the 1950s, and more recently agreed to transfer it to Australia under the AUKUS defense pact.
President Lee has long argued that acquiring nuclear-powered submarines armed with conventional weapons would reduce the burden on the U.S. military in defending the Korean Peninsula.
He also sought Trump’s backing to advance South Korea’s stalled ambitions to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and enrich uranium, activities currently prohibited under a bilateral nuclear agreement with Washington.
Experts say the decision raises complex nonproliferation concerns. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, warned that the move “raises all sorts of questions,” noting that nuclear propulsion typically relies on highly enriched uranium and would require new safeguards from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“It remains technically and militarily unnecessary for South Korea to acquire the technology to extract weapons-usable plutonium or to enrich uranium, both of which could be diverted for nuclear weapons,” Kimball said, urging Washington to avoid setting a precedent that could weaken global nonproliferation norms.
Jenny Town, director of the Washington-based Korea research group 38 North, said Seoul’s request for U.S. nuclear cooperation was “inevitable,” especially after reports of Russian assistance to North Korea’s own submarine program.
Kim Dong-yup, a professor at Kyungnam University, described the Trump-Lee summit as a “transaction scheme” that linked South Korea’s expanded defense spending and nuclear ambitions with U.S. economic interests.
“In the end, this summit can be summarized in one word: the commercialization of the alliance,” he said. “The balance of the deal seems to maximize American interests rather than South Korea’s autonomy.”
If realized, the nuclear submarine project would mark a historic shift in the U.S.-South Korea alliance and a significant development in East Asia’s evolving military landscape.
Source: Reuters
Written By Rodney Mbua
