South Korea’s government moved quickly to shut down a report claiming Washington had proposed that Seoul acquire a stake in Westinghouse Electric Co., the American nuclear giant at the center of US plans to dramatically expand domestic atomic energy capacity.
Officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy flatly rejected the claims, calling the joint investment proposal “not true.” The denial came on August 24, after the Korea Economic Daily published a story citing unnamed officials who said such a deal was under discussion.
What the report claimed
The Korea Economic Daily’s article painted a picture of a potentially transformative nuclear partnership. According to the publication, the US had floated the idea of South Korean investment in Westinghouse as a way to tap Seoul’s capital reserves and its considerable construction expertise for America’s nuclear buildout.
The report suggested that a Korean stake in Westinghouse could accomplish two things simultaneously. First, it would help resolve longstanding intellectual property disputes between Westinghouse and Korean nuclear firms. Second, it would open the door for South Korean companies to participate in the US large-reactor market, which has been largely off-limits due to export controls and IP restrictions.
One funding mechanism floated in the report was a proposed $200 billion bilateral strategic investment fund, which would theoretically provide the financial firepower for such a deal.
The ownership picture
Westinghouse is currently owned by two major players. Brookfield Asset Management holds a 51% majority stake, while Canadian uranium producer Cameco Corporation owns the remaining 49%. The pair acquired the company out of bankruptcy, betting that a global nuclear renaissance would make Westinghouse’s reactor technology and fuel services enormously valuable.
Washington reportedly has rights to acquire up to a 20% stake in Westinghouse in exchange for supporting domestic nuclear development valued at over $80 billion.
The broader US-South Korea nuclear relationship
The US and South Korea have been slowly, sometimes painfully, working through nuclear cooperation issues for years. South Korea builds reactors using technology derived from Westinghouse designs, creating persistent questions about who owns what and who can sell what to whom.
In January 2025, Westinghouse and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, a subsidiary of state-run KEPCO, reached a settlement agreement that was supposed to clear some of these IP cobwebs. That deal was seen as a significant step toward enabling Korean firms to compete more freely in international reactor markets.
South Korea has already demonstrated its competitiveness abroad. Korean firms have been involved in reactor deals in the Czech Republic, among other markets, though these projects have sometimes bumped up against Westinghouse’s IP claims. The settlement was meant to reduce that friction.
What the denial signals
Seoul’s sharp and immediate rejection suggests the government was eager to get ahead of any market speculation. When trade ministries issue flat denials within hours of a news report, it typically means either the report was genuinely wrong or the discussions were so preliminary that acknowledging them would be politically inconvenient.
The US government’s option to acquire up to 20% of Westinghouse already creates a potential pathway for the company’s ownership structure to evolve. Adding a South Korean government stake on top of that would make Westinghouse a genuinely multinational entity in a sector where governments tend to prefer tight control over their nuclear supply chains.