South Korea — Special Act for Korea-US Strategic Investment Management (한미 전략적 투자 관리를 위한 특별법) — US$350bn sovereign outbound investment programme

Mechanism

The Special Act for Korea-US Strategic Investment Management is South Korea's domestic enabling legislation for the bilateral investment commitment announced in the December 2025 Korea-US Strategic Trade and Investment Deal. Prior to the Act's passage, the US$350bn pledge was a bilateral-MOU commitment without statutory authority or institutional architecture; the Act converts that commitment into an enacted legal mandate and creates the operational machinery to execute it.

Investment envelope and allocation:

• Total commitment: US$350bn (~KRW 517tn), with a US$20bn annual cap (adjustable based on project progress)
• US$200bn tranche: US strategic industries — semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, AI compute, defence-industrial supply chains, critical-minerals processing
• US$150bn tranche: US shipbuilding — operationalises Korea's contribution to revitalising US domestic shipyard capacity, directly counterparting the US SHIPS for America Act and the January 2026 EO 14269 "Restoring America's Maritime Dominance"

Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Corporation (한미전략투자공사):

• New state-run entity, wholly financed by the Korean government
• Paid-in capital: KRW 2tn (~US$1.36bn)
• Mandate: execute the bilateral MOU, structure project financing, select and monitor investments, and report to the National Assembly Standing Committee
• The Corporation's creation is the most structurally significant feature — it is a permanent institutional vehicle that will require ongoing amendment tracking as it deploys capital and selects projects

Article 3 Clause 3 — commercial-viability override: The Act explicitly permits the Corporation to make investments even where commercial return is insufficient, provided (a) unavoidable national-security or supply-chain-stability reasons exist and (b) the relevant National Assembly Standing Committee grants prior consent. This is an unusual industrial-policy provision that subordinates profitability to national-security logic — structurally analogous to the US Defense Production Act Title III financing authority (which similarly permits below-market investments in defence-critical production capacity) but operating as outbound rather than inbound capital deployment.

Legislative timeline:

• Bill introduced: ~late November 2025 (106 days before passage)
• Special Committee formed: 9 February 2026 (National Assembly motion, 160-3-1 vote)
• Plenary passage: 12 March 2026 (226-8-8 bipartisan vote; 242 participating)
• Cabinet promulgation: 17 March 2026
• Statutory effective date: 18 June 2026 (90-day delay)

Downstream implications

• KUSPI operationalisation: The May 2026 Korea-US Shipbuilding Partnership Initiative MOU (2026-05-08-us-korea-shipbuilding-partnership-initiative-kuspi) is the first bilateral instrument that the Corporation will likely execute against for the US$150bn shipbuilding tranche — tracking KPI is the speed at which KUSPI projects reach financial close
• US CHIPS Act / IIJA / IRA counterpart architecture: the US$200bn strategic-industries tranche positions Korean sovereign capital as the largest non-US allied source of inbound US industrial-policy financing, creating a capital-matching dynamic with the US federal incentive stack that no other allied government has approached at this scale
• Article 3 Clause 3 precedent: the commercial-viability override clause will face its first test when the Corporation proposes a project that Korean commercial-finance institutions would not independently fund; the Standing Committee consent mechanism sets a parliamentary oversight precedent for state-directed outbound FDI
• FSR / CFIUS triangulation: Korean sovereign capital entering US semiconductor / defence-industrial / critical-minerals sectors via a state-run Corporation will require CFIUS voluntary notice discipline, particularly for projects in dual-use categories; the Corporation's government-ownership structure is a CFIUS-relevant factor even under the allied-government carve-outs
• Amendment tracking: The Corporation is mandated to report to the National Assembly Standing Committee on project selection and deployment — each major project announcement or capital-call milestone is a candidate IPTM amendment

Open questions

• Exact bill number (입법예고 / 공포번호) in the Korea Official Gazette (관보) — not yet captured; wake-filing should retrieve once available on law.go.kr
• First cohort of Corporation projects — expected announcement H2 2026 ahead of the June 2027 US$20bn annual-cap first-year milestone
• Whether the Article 3 Clause 3 override has been invoked for any of the KUSPI shipbuilding projects announced in May 2026
• CFIUS filing posture for Corporation-backed projects in US semiconductor or defence-adjacent sectors