President Lee Jae Myung said that South Korea, as a committed ally, will help the United States rebuild its core industries.

The president made the remarks on Friday morning in a televised briefing on the results of the two nations’ trade and security negotiations. 

Lee said that going forward, the two countries will build an unprecedented cooperative partnership spanning traditional strategic sectors, such as shipbuilding and nuclear power, as well as advanced industries, including artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

Lee added that, just as the United States once supported South Korea, South Korea will now support the United States in return.

The president said that in the process, South Korea, with its strong manufacturing and innovation capabilities, and the United States, with its world-class technology and market, will join forces to expand together on the global stage. 

Lee also noted that South Korea began its tariff negotiations later than other nations due to domestic turmoil, but that the strong alliance between Seoul and Washington still allowed both sides to reach reasonable, mutually beneficial outcomes.

The president said that by confirming that both governments will only make investments within the scope that the South Korean economy can sufficiently withstand, and in projects that are commercially reasonable, the distrust and concerns of some who fear that this is effectively a grant under the guise of investment in projects with difficult-to-recover principal have been completely dispelled.

In July, Washington had agreed to lower its reciprocal tariffs on South Korea from 25 to 15 percent in return for Seoul's pledge to invest 350 billion U.S. dollars. But the two sides had since been at odds over how the investment would be carried out.