The Presidential Office said on the 9th that US President Donald Trump "appears to give the impression that he does not rule out building" warships in Korea, referring to the vessels Trump had requested from Seoul.
A senior Presidential Office official made the remarks on the 9th at a press center set up in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, while briefing on the outcomes of President Lee Jae-myung's state visit to Mongolia, after being asked about the construction method for the warships. Earlier, Trump had sounded out President Lee during last month's Group of Seven (G7) summit, asking, "Can you quickly build 10 US warships?" The Korean and US leaders subsequently met at the official welcome dinner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit on the 7th and continued follow-up discussions on warship construction.
"The conversation between the two leaders was not a systematic dialogue," the official explained. "It was fragmentary, exchanged briefly while standing at the dinner venue." The official added, "I think we need to further specify this through working-level talks and identify and fill in the empty spaces we do not yet know about," and "We will need to figure out exactly what approach is being proposed."
Regarding the fact that the United States in principle prohibits the foreign construction of naval vessels through laws such as the Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment, the official noted, "There will be the question of how to circumvent existing law and how to resolve this issue." The official continued, "There will be room for the president to act, and there will be various methods. It also appears to be related to Congress," adding, "We also need to determine whether (the construction method Trump has in mind) falls under block construction."
The official said, "The laws that apply differ slightly for various types of vessels, including warships, military supply ships, and merchant-class military support vessels," explaining that regarding Trump's request, "we need a bit more working-level consultation to understand it clearly."
On Trump's request to build warships, the official stressed that "for us, this is important cooperation." The official said, "Our shipbuilding industry is at a high level, there are areas that require Korea-US investment, and there is also 'MASGA' (Korea-US shipbuilding cooperation), so we will combine various elements well to cooperate in a way that meets expectations." The official added, "Then cooperation between the allies will become stronger, investment can proceed smoothly, and Korea-US relations can be further developed."
Meanwhile, regarding US concerns over the revision of the Network Act and other measures, the official responded, "There is continuous communication between Korea and the US, and it seems we need to explain a bit more." The official explained, "We are not treating (the relevant companies) discriminatorily," adding, "We are taking reasonable measures to protect consumer interests, so we intend to resolve the objections through further communication."
The Network Act, which took effect on the 7th, includes provisions imposing on platform operators such as Naver, Kakao, Google, Meta, and X (formerly Twitter) an obligation to delete and block false or manipulated information.
