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Security adviser not optimistic about U.S. currency swap, hopes for trade talk compromise

Published: 30 Sep. 2025, 09:07

National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac speaks with reporters in an interview at the presidential office in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Sept. 30. [YONHAP]

National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said he is not optimistic about a currency swap arrangement with the United States as a safeguard for South Korea's $350 billion investment pledge, but voiced hope that Seoul and Washington could eventually reach a compromise in trade talks.

Wi said Seoul and Washington are struggling to narrow differences over the investment package, which is tied to lowering U.S. tariffs on Korean goods from 25 percent to 15 percent.

"Our government has suggested a currency swap line, but it will not be easy given precedent in how the U.S. has handled such arrangements," Wi said in a joint interview with Yonhap News Agency and two other local wire news services on Monday.

While a swap is among the "necessary conditions," he said other "sufficient conditions" must also be met for a deal to be finalized.

Despite the difficulties, the former career diplomat, with extensive experience negotiating with the United States, struck a measured tone.

"From my own experience of having led tough negotiations, I am not that pessimistic," he said.

He said negotiators are working to make progress ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit slated for Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, while not ruling out the possibility of an inflection point in trade talks before then.

"I am not sure when the time will be but the APEC summit could serve as an opportunity," he said.

Aside from the trade talks, Seoul and Washington have been working on a security package that includes South Korea's increased defense spending and revisions to a nuclear pact to secure spent fuel reprocessing capability, with Wi saying the two sides have "reached equilibrium."

Under the current agreement, South Korea is allowed to enrich uranium below 20 percent only with U.S. consent and is prohibited from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, but it has sought to ease these restrictions through revisions to the bilateral pact.

On President Lee Jae Myung's North Korea dialogue initiative, which calls for "exchange," "normalization" and "denuclearization" — referred to as the END initiative — Wi said the three elements are not sequential but are designed to provide momentum for one another.

He acknowledged that the envisioned "normalization" of inter-Korean relations would be a long process under the current security environment on the Korean Peninsula. The two Koreas remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice agreement and not an official peace treaty.

"The end point will be normalization within the special relationship," Wi said, adding that the approach is rooted in past inter-Korean agreements and has been upheld by the previous governments.

His definition of normalization differed from that of Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who said that Seoul and Pyongyang are in fact two states from the standpoint of international law. Critics said Chung's view partially aligns with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's description of two Koreas as "two hostile states."

Yonhap