In the meantime, South Korea's "Korean Daily" on October 16 that South Korea's four major venture capitalists, Samsung Electronics chairman Li Ying-young, SK Group chairman Trai Taizong, Modern Automobile Group chairman Zheng Ying-young, LG Group chairman Jing-young this week will travel to Florida, U.S. Sea Lake Farm, to hold a "golf meeting" with U.S. President Trump.
Meanwhile, South Korean Presidential Chamber Policy Secretary Kim Jong-nam and South Korean Industry and Commerce Resources Minister Kim Jong-il are also scheduled to travel to Washington on the 16th to meet with U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnik.
Although the South Korean government stressed that the chaebol's trip to the United States had nothing to do with tariff negotiations, external analysts believe that the tariff issue is likely to be mentioned when the trade negotiations between South Korea and the United States are deadlocked. This meeting is an action of the South Korean business community to "assist the government and attack Trump directly".
The meeting was led by Sun Jitsu, chief executive of the Japanese Softbank Group, and was the first time a group of South Korean visited Trump's private residence.
According to the "Korean Daily", Li and Zheng Xiaoping just attended the Korean-U.S. Day economic dialogue event in Tokyo on 15th, and met with Sun Jitsu, the two are likely to fly directly from Japan to the United States.
According to industry insiders, in addition to golf activities, the Mar-a-Lago gathering will also focus on the "Stargate" artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure led by Softbank.
The project, with a total investment of up to $50 billion, is jointly funded by Oracle, the Open AI Research Center (OpenAI) and SoftBank Group Japan, and plans to build a data center in the United States to support AI technology development. Samsung Electronics and SK Healy have announced a partnership to provide chips and other solutions for the Star Gate project.
The Korea Herald predicts that the meeting will further refine the cooperation content and discuss broader industrial synergy. In addition to the "Stargate" project, the cooperation between South Korean companies and SoftBank may also involve plans to build an AI and robot industrial park totaling US$1 trillion.
It is reported that the South Korean chaebol delegation's trip to the United States has nothing to do with the ongoing trade negotiations between the United States and South Korea. However, the Chosun Ilbo said that Kim Yong-bham's temporary decision to visit the United States without participating in previous rounds of negotiations was obviously influenced by South Korean entrepreneurs 'plans to meet with Trump.
A person close to the presidential palace of South Korea revealed: "We are aware of the golf gathering plan between Trump and Korean entrepreneurs. Although this is not directly related to the Korea-US trade negotiations, it is expected that Trump will mention the tariff issue during the meeting, and we hope this will play an active role in the negotiations."
Prior to this, South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister of Economy and Minister of Planning and Finance Goo Runzhe went to the United States on the 15th to attend the meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Twenty (G20) in Washington, as well as the autumn annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, during which he will meet with US Treasury Secretary Bescent.
Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-un will discuss a number of trade issues with U.S. officials in Washington, including $350 billion in investment commitments to the United States.
This is one of the main differences between South Korea and the United States in the framework of the trade agreement reached at the end of July. The United States promised to reduce the 25% tariff on South Korea to 15%. In exchange, South Korea stated that it would set up a $350 billion investment fund in the United States to support the expansion of Korean enterprises in the United States, of which $150 billion was used for shipbuilding. In addition, South Korean private enterprises have pledged to invest an additional $150 billion in the United States.
From the beginning, South Korea made it clear that the funds would be implemented in the form of loans, loan guarantees and equity, rather than direct cash spending. But the US did not acknowledge this and demanded South Korea's full direct investment. Trump at the end of last month in a meeting with reporters in the White House highlighted that "South Korea will bring $3500 billion in advance" and packed it into its own tariff policy "performance".
For South Korea, "pay 35 billion in advance cash" is almost an "impossible task."Korean President Li said in an interview with Reuters earlier that South Korea is different from Japan, which has a trade deal with the United States: Tokyo's foreign exchange reserves are more than $ 82 billion, more than twice South Korea, and the yen as the international currency has the American exchange mechanism; while South Korea's foreign exchange reserves are $ 416,3 billion, in the absence of a currency exchange agreement, the South Korean economy could fall into the difficulty of the financial crisis in 1997 if the US demanded to invest in cash.
Earlier, in order to reach a trade agreement, South Korea also proposed to the United States a shipbuilding cooperation project called “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again” (MASGA).
For some time, Hanwha Marine Co., Ltd., as an important investor in the Korea-US MASGA project, has actively sent funds, orders, and technology to the United States. At the same time, Hanwha Marine also signed a contract with the U.S. Navy to provide maintenance, repair and overhaul work for U.S. Navy ships, helping the Trump administration's efforts to restore global shipbuilding competitiveness.
On October 14th, China's Ministry of Commerce announced the implementation of counter-measures against five related US subsidiaries of Hanwha Marine Co., Ltd. The spokesman said that the United States began to implement the final measures of Section 301 investigation into China's maritime, logistics and shipbuilding fields, which seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relations, and seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises. The relevant subsidiaries of Hanwha Ocean Co., Ltd. in the United States assisted and supported the relevant investigation activities of the U.S. government, endangering China's own sovereignty, security and development interests.
This move has caused the Korean media to feel that "the conflict between China and the United States is burning, South Korea has suffered," just like "shellfish" has been involved in the "conflict of the Chinese-American giant whales". "Central Daily" quoted South Korea's Jiangxi University professor Zhu Zhao (translator) as saying that China has included Hunan's Philadelphia shipyard in the sanctions list, which is a double strike and linkage initiative, which both contains Trump's plans to revitalize the shipbuilding industry, but also targets Hunan's national defense products using Chinese rare-earth elements.