President Lee Utilizes Pragmatic Diplomacy in U.S. and South America

President Lee Jae-myung toasts with Samsung Electronics Chmn. Lee Jay-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Chmn. Chung Eui-sun, SK Group Chmn. Chey Tae-won, Chmn. Lee Hae-jin of Naver’s Borad of Directors, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, President Rani Borcar of Microsoft Hardware, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Broadcom CEO Hok Tan at The Lamp Restaurant in San Francisco, U.S., on July 24.

President Lee Jae-myung took a flight to Seoul on Aug. 2 after wrapping up a scheduled visit to Frankfurt, Germany, the last leg of his latest overseas visit after visiting the United States and South America.

President Lee, who left Korea on July 24, visited San Francisco, Brasilia and Sau Paulo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Frankfurt and returned home on Aug. 3.

President Lee’s latest overseas trip to the United States and South America placed a top priority on building a foundation for Korea to make a leap forward as an AI supply chain leader.

President Lee presented the “San Francisco AI Declaration,” calling for Korea to become an irreplaceable global AI supply chain leader and a global hub to expand the global AI market at San Francisco, the birthplace of the AI industry.

President Lee’s visit to San Francisco was designed to work out detailed ways of promoting investment and cooperation as a global initiative between Korea and global big tech companies.

While visiting South America, President Lee attached top priority to strengthening cooperation in the supply chains of core mineral resources, essential for becoming a global AI hub, with Brazil, Chile and Argentia, the countries rich with resources.

Brazil ranks first in rare earth reserves, Chile places first in global copper and lithium reserves and Argentina ranks second in global shale gas reserves.

The Korean government has achieved its goal of diversifying and stabilizing supply chains by cooperating in the whole cycles of core mineral resources with the countries, striking energy agreements and establishing economic security partnerships.

In late June, President Lee revealed his vision “three mega projects,” calling for building semiconductors, AI datacenters and physical AI into national industries.

He has been evaluated to have completed a detailed roadmap for Korea to grow into a global AI hub through cooperation with several countries and companies.

President Lee’s visit has brought about specific outcomes on top of a blueprint for the country to become a global AI leader country.

On the occasion of President Lee’s visit, Samsung Electronics struck an MOU with Broadcom on foundry cooperation for the supply of memory chips worth $200 billion and AI chip production.

SK Group agreed to promote cooperation for supplying advanced memory chips worth $750 billion for five years with Nvidia and other global tech companies.

The Korean companies struck semiconductor deals worth a combined $950 billion.

President Lee Jae-myung shakes hands with Argentine President Javier Milay at a welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires on July 31. (Photo on the courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae)

On the occasion of President Lee’s state visit to Brazil and official visit to Argentina, Korea agreed to resume trade pact negotiations in December on the Southern Common Market, commonly known Mercosur, which have been halted for five years.

Korea agreed to modernize the Free Trade Agreement with Chile, some 22 years after it went into force in 2004.

Korea and Brazil resolved to jointly develop next-generation civilian aircraft based on the Embraer C-390 transport plane, designed and produced by Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer in cooperation with Korea.

South Korea struck a double tax avoidance agreement with Argentia, a long-time pending issue for Korean companies, while diversifying crude oil imports, now concentrating on the Middle East, to South America by agreeing to import crude oil from Argentina from next year.

In a press center briefing in Buenos Aires on July 31, Wi Sung-lac, presidential national security adviser, said, “President Lee’s overseas visit has served as an opportunity for Korea to have established cooperative ties to become global AI supply chain hub beyond the memory chip supply powerhouse.”

“Korea has solidified a cooperative regime to secure core mineral resources essential for the while of the AI supply chains, such as AI hardware, including semiconductors, and AI datacenters, at the state level with each of the three South American countries, and we’ve made considerable progress in expanding markets for Korean-made goods with the South American economic powers and diversifying trade, investment and energy imports.”