US, South Korea, Japan to Implement Small Nuclear Reactor Plan

The United States on Wednesday said it would implement a July agreement with South Korea and Japan to deploy small modular nuclear reactors in other countries to help meet growing energy demands in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

The U.S. State Department said an implementation plan puts into action an agreement the three governments signed on July 7 in Ankara, Turkey.

As part of the implementation plan, the governments said they would support industry-led projects involving companies and suppliers from the three countries to deploy multiple reactors, aiming to reduce costs and risks, attract private investment, streamline licensing, and speed up delivery, according to a fact sheet.

They will also promote local supplier involvement in host nations to build resilient supply chains and expand the local workforce and technology base to support local project ownership.

The State Department also said that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau attended and welcomed the signing of an agreement among four companies to cooperate on advancing the deployment of the BWRX-300, a 300-megawatt small modular reactor, across Europe. The companies involved are GE Vernova of the United States, Hitachi of Japan, Samsung C&T of South Korea, and SGE of Poland.

“By bringing together American, Japanese, Korean and Polish industry leaders, this international consortium aims to deliver reliable baseload nuclear power to millions of people across Europe and promote over $150 billion in reactor investments in the coming years,” the State Department said in a statement.

Duggan Flanakin, a senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, wrote in a commentary published by The Epoch Times on Monday that efforts to revitalize the nuclear power industry have faced skepticism and regulatory roadblocks.

“Small modular reactors were first tested decades ago and could already be powering data centers had anti-nuclear fearmongering not stopped the Integral Fast Reactor program in 1994,” Duggan wrote.

The announcements on Wednesday sit against a broader civil-nuclear push The Epoch Times has reported on throughout the year.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Development Finance Corp. approved up to $414 million in financing for a uranium project in Niger.

The United States and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement in July allowing the Gulf kingdom to develop a civilian nuclear program on its soil, the U.S. Department of Energy said at the time.

The U.S. Department of Energy also unveiled a “great reactor race” in August 2025 with the “most aggressive nuclear-deployment timelines in American history” in an effort to license 10 new reactors by 2030, including three by July 4, 2026.

That would quadruple the nation’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050, goals outlined in Trump’s four May 2025 “Nuclear Renaissance” executive orders.

The United States maintains the world’s largest nuclear power industry with 94 reactors operated by 21 power companies at 54 sites across 28 states.

It produces nearly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity and directly employs 70,000 Americans, supporting 250,000 jobs while contributing more than $60 billion annually to the nation’s gross domestic product and paying $12 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes, according to the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute.

Emel Akan and John Haughey contributed to this report.