U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said a portion of South Korea’s promised investment in the United States could go towards the construction of nuclear power plants.

During a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday local time, Lutnick proposed allocating the combined 750 billion U.S. dollars in cash pledged by South Korea and Japan for nuclear power generation.

"We need to have a 'nuclear arsenal' in America of power, the generation of power,” Lutnick said, adding “hundreds of billions of dollars financed by the Japanese and Koreans" could fund such an arsenal.

In its memorandum of understanding signed with Japan, the U.S. specified the construction of large nuclear power plants and small modular reactors as concrete projects.

Last month, when President Lee Jae Myung announced the conclusion of Korea-U.S. trade and security negotiations, he said the two nations would establish cooperative partnerships spanning traditional strategic industries such as shipbuilding and nuclear power plants to high-tech sectors such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

Lutnick went on to say that after getting money from South Korea and Japan, the U.S. will build the nuclear power plants domestically and then “divide the cash flow 50-50.”

He also said the U.S. is going to build 150 billion dollars worth of ships.

At the start of the meeting, President Donald Trump accused other nations, including allies like Japan and South Korea, of "ripping off" the United States, but said his "historic tariffs" were bringing in large sums of money.