SEOUL — A revelation that the U.S. Department of Energy has designated South Korea as a “sensitive country” — a label reserved for nations deemed to pose a threat to national security or nuclear nonproliferation — has left South Korean officials scrambling for answers.
Questioned by lawmakers during a parliamentary session on March 11, Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said the South Korean government had been unaware of the measure, finding out through “unofficial channels” only after local media broke the news a day earlier.
Maintained by the Department of Energy’s counterintelligence unit, the Sensitive Country List includes nuclear states such as India and Russia as well as countries deemed to be sponsors of terrorism, such as North Korea or Iran.
South Korea’s addition to the list, which the Department of Energy announced to research institutions under its purview this month, will be finalized by April 15, South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper reported.
In a statement to The Times on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy confirmed the change had been made by the outgoing Biden administration in January, but did not explain why.
“Inclusion does not necessarily indicate an adversarial relationship with the United States. Many designated countries are those we regularly cooperate with on a variety of energy, science, technology, counterterrorism and nonproliferation issues,” the spokesperson said, adding that South Korea was labeled an “Other Designated Country” — the “lowest category” of the list.
“Inclusion on the SCL also does not prohibit Americans or U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) personnel from visiting or doing business with listed countries, just as it doesn’t prevent these foreign nationals from visiting DOE sites,” the spokesperson said. “The designation does not prohibit scientific or technical cooperation. These visits and cooperation undergo an internal review beforehand.”
On Monday, Cho told local reporters that officials believed the move was triggered by “a security-related problem” at a Department of Energy research lab. In an auditing report covering October 2023 through March 2024 submitted to Congress, the Department of Energy disclosed it had fired a contractor for attempting to board a plane to South Korea with “proprietary nuclear reactor design software.”
Still, the U.S. government’s unannounced move to put a major, nonnuclear ally in the same company as countries such as China or North Korea has unsettled politicians, with many interpreting it as a blow to the U.S.-South Korea alliance.
“Something unprecedented in the 70 years of the U.S.-South Korea alliance has happened,” said Democratic Party spokesperson Kim Sung-hoi.
Nonproliferation experts have attributed the decision to U.S. wariness of the growing chorus in South Korea for its own nuclear armament.
Although South Korea has been a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since the 1970s, that notion has gained significant traction since President Trump’s first term, when Trump hinted that the U.S. might withdraw troops from South Korea, which he has accused of not paying enough for their upkeep.
“Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country. But they’re a very wealthy country and why wouldn’t they want to pay?” Trump said in an interview with Time magazine last year.
With the U.S. no longer seen as a reliable provider of military support, high-ranking officials here have openly mulled over the possibility of South Korea developing its own nuclear capabilities, among them conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol — who currently faces impeachment for his declaration of martial law last year — and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon.
“There may come a time when we can no longer rely on the U.S. for our security,” wrote former Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan in a newspaper column this month, shortly after the Trump administration suspended military aid to Ukraine. “And to prepare for such a scenario, we need to strengthen our own military strength, including potential nuclear capabilities, so that we can contain North Korea on our own.”
Despite South Korea’s formal commitments to nonproliferation, these comments are likely being interpreted by U.S. officials much more seriously than South Korean officials might think, said Tom Countryman, a former assistant secretary of State for international security and nonproliferation.
“It’s unusual, but at the same time, there is no other country in the world that does not already have nuclear weapons where the public debate about maybe getting nuclear weapons is as loud as it is in the Republic of Korea right now,” he said of the sensitive country listing.
Countryman, who in 2015 led negotiations with South Korea for the revised 123 Agreement — a pact that the U.S. government requires of countries seeking technical cooperation and assistance in civil nuclear energy — noted that U.S. officials are still conscious of the fact that South Korea once ran a covert nuclear weapons program in the 1970s and that subsequent administrations here have continued to push for the necessary U.S. permission to reprocess spent nuclear reactor fuel into plutonium, which is a crucial stepping stone toward building nuclear weapons.
“It is still a relevant history today,” he said.
Due in part to significant technological assistance from the U.S. dating back decades, South Korea has one of the most sophisticated civil nuclear programs in the world, with 26 reactors providing about 30% of the country’s electricity.
Citing the difficulty of storing spent fuel in South Korea’s small land mass, South Korean officials have long argued for the right to reprocess its own spent fuel as Japan does, a decision that the 123 Agreement in 2015 postponed.
But South Korea’s recent designation may mean that the door on that goal has closed.
“I believe that all of the loose political talk about nuclear weapons makes it less likely that the United States would give such permission,” Countryman said.
In South Korea, many fear that the designation will hamstring technological cooperation with the U.S., including in nuclear energy as well as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
“It will cast a chill over the research atmosphere, especially with stricter screening for South Korean researchers trying to visit the U.S. or participate in projects that the Department of Energy sees as sensitive or risky,” said Moon Joo-hyun, a nuclear scientist at Dankook University.
Among the research areas affected may be small modular reactors, which have been hailed by governments as a more cost-effective and safer alternative to traditional nuclear reactors, alongside concerns that they pose a greater proliferation risk.
Nuclear experts such as Moon say South Korea, which is one of the few countries in the world that exports nuclear reactors, may find itself subject to Department of Energy controls on the basis that South Korea’s flagship export reactor was built based on a U.S. design.
Following a $20-billion deal in 2009 to provide the United Arab Emirates with four reactors, South Korea has expressed interest in exporting its reactors to Saudi Arabia, which has refused to sign a 123 Agreement with the U.S. unless it is allowed to enrich its own uranium — another path to making nuclear bombs.
Last year, after the Czech Republic named South Korea’s Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power as the preferred bidder for its own major nuclear power project, U.S.-based nuclear power company Westinghouse filed a lawsuit against Korea Hydro alleging intellectual property violations. The two companies reached a settlement this year.
“There were a lot of aspects of the Czech bid that seemed to make the U.S. uncomfortable, and I actually think that this fear of South Korea’s growing share in the global nuclear energy market might also have played a part in the decision to list South Korea,” said Hwang Ji-hwan, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the University of Seoul.
”There are still areas in which South Korea needs the cooperation of their U.S. counterparts during these export deals, such as patents. Those could take a hit,” Hwang said.
