US-ROK Cost Sharing Agreement Reached
UPDATE: OFK and the Marmot’s Hole has more on the billion dollar tribute to North
Korea.
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US and Korea conclude USFK cost sharing agreement:
South Korea and the United States on Wednesday struck a deal to increase Seoul’s share of the cost of maintaining American soldiers here in 2007 and 2008 by 6.6 percent, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Korea will contribute a total of 725.5 billion won ($780 million) next year, up 45.1 billion won from its share this year, and its share in 2008 will be 725.5 billion won plus the rate of inflation in 2007, ministry officials said.
“We could conclude the agreement with the U.S. side on the phone,’’ a ministry official said. “Both sides are not totally content with the result of the negotiations, but I think it is the most reasonable result based on the spirit of the Seoul-Washington alliance.’’
The deal was struck after six rounds of negotiations between Seoul and Washington.
South Korea is going to contribute $780 million dollars to USFK next year which is still less than half the overall USFK costs. Prior to this agreement South Korea payed roughly 40% of USFK’s costs; this new agreement means they are paying roughly 46% of costs.
Let’s compare the $780 million dollar cost sharing agreement to the amount of money Seoul sends to North Korea. While North Korea was busy creating international instability with their ballistic missile and nuclear bomb tests, the South Korean government was busy sending them a record amount of humanitarian aid. The South Korean government sent $227 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid while private donors in South Korea sent $70 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid for a grand total of roughly $300 million dollars in humanitarian aid to North Korea.
On top of the humanitarian aid, the Korean government this year sent 650 billion won or about $690 million dollars in inter-Korean economic aid to North Korea to finance joint Korean ventures such as the Kaesong Industrial Project the and Kumgang Tour operations.
So if you add up the humanitarian aid and economic aid sent to North Korea by South Korea this year, it comes up to nearly $1 billion dollars in aid while the South Korean government payed only 40% of the cost sharing for the US-ROK alliance for a total $735 million dollars. In effect the South Korean government is willing to pay the North Koreans more money than they are willing to pay for cost sharing of the US-ROK alliance that has been responsible for ensuring the economic, political, and national security of the nation for over 50 years.
Then to make matters worse the US negotiators had to then haggle for months to get the South Korean government to raise their cost sharing contributions by a only 6.6% to $780 million dollars this year while planning on continuing to give North Korea a billion dollars in aid next year despite their provacative ballistic missile and nuclear tests.
Tried to read some of your posts… but apprently they have been deleted???
Entered an error page 404!
Keep up the good work
Harmy, I am still constructing this site. My original site http://www.gikorea.net/BLOG is still up and running and you can more easily check out the archives there. I just fixed some code on this site so scrolling to older pages from the top button should work now. I'm still working on getting my archive page fixed on this site. Anyway thanks for reading.
[…] Is it any wonder now why the South Korean government would rather better fund North Korea than the US-ROK Alliance by sending a billion dollars of aid to the North next year. Is it also any wonder why South Korea isn’t going to ignore North Korean human rights violations along with the ruling party doing everything possible to cover up the South Korean spy scandal: More than half of the Korean public suspect that the government has been less than aggressive in hunting down North Korean spies, while a majority feels that there is a problem with the way that people here perceive national security issues regarding the North. […]
[…] Those of us who have served in Korea for awhile knew the 2008 timeline wasn’t going to happen, but 2013 give me a break? The Korean government has never wanted to allow the USFK relocation to Camp Humphreys just like they have never really wanted to take operational control from USFK either. Both the Yongsan and the operational control issues have long served as great cannonfodder by South Korean politicians looking to demagoge the issue to their own political advantage. Plus the Koreans have never wanted to fully fund the move despite all the prime real estate they are gaining from the closed out USFK facilities. Heck they won’t even properly fund the US-ROK Alliance while giving over a billion dollars to North Korea a year! You also have the Fifth Column in South Korea, organized by North Korean agents that want to stop the move because North Korea wants to keep 2ID and USFK locked into their current locations that are well within artillery range of North Korea which would mean their easy destruction during war time. Additionally the locations of the bases, particularly Yongsan have been completely surrounded by urban cities which has led to accidents and incidents with the Korean public that gets demagoged by the North Korean sponsored anti-US activists groups in order to draw a wedge between USFK and the general Korean public. The consolidation of US forces would remove all US forces out of North Korean artillery range and additionally under the ballistic missile protection of US Army PATRIOT missile batteries. This would create better force protection for USFK forces along with giving USFK commanders more flexibility during war time. […]
[…] All this aid is just a bribe to get Kim Jong-il to agree to a second inter-Korean summit. The first inter-Korean summit in 2000, was agreed to after than President Kim Dae-jung paid off Kim Jong-il with $500 million dollars. President Roh Moo-hyun can’t just bribe Kim Jong-il like Kim Dae-jung did so he has instead disguised the bribes as increased economic assistance to a tune of over one billion dollars in aid to North Korea this year. President Roh wants, what I call the "World’s Most Expensive Photo Op", which he believes will give him some kind of legacy once his presidency ends this year. The leftists in South Korea on the other hand believe that a inter-Korean summit will give them momentum going into this year’s presidential elections against the conservative candidates when Kim Jong-il makes vague promises of inter-Korean unity and cooperation he has no intention of keeping. […]
[…] Of course, South Korea, a KEDO member, is paying the North Korean regime a cool billion in direct aid this year. Maybe some sort of garnishment is in order. Either that, or a very angry letter. […]
[…] So obviously this latest great idea isn’t going to do any good. If the government really wants to improve the birth rate they need to take on the real problem and that is the education system. Either the system needs to be reformed or the government needs to provide families who have three kids or more with economic assistance to pay for the education costs. I guarantee the government will improve the birth rate significantly if they agree to pay in full the education costs for the third baby of any family. This would cost a lot of money, but I’m willing to bet it would be money better spent than sending over one billion dollars to North Korea next year. […]
[…] agreement that the article is referring to is when the Korean government made prior deals to fund USFK and the Camp Humphreys relocation. However, once Secretary Rumsfeld was dumped the Korean […]
[…] many of you may remember, last year South Korea decided they would rather send a over a billion dollars to North Korea this year rather than properly fund the US-ROK alliance. Well now the impacts from this decision […]
[…] of the US-ROK alliance only weeks after making the agreement undiplomatic? Isn’t giving over a billion dollars this year to North Korea while denying USFK the agreed upon money for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance, which is no where […]
[…] aid and money continues to flow one way and that is north as the Roh Moo-hyun regime has decided to fund North Korea with more money than he funds the US-ROK alliance. All this aid in return for nothing is all legitimized because it […]
[…] may remember that under the Roh Moo-hyun administration the South Korean government actually sent more money to fund North Korea then they did to properly fund the US-ROK Alliance. Lee Myung-bak has been saying a lot of good […]
[…] USFK, they don’t even contribute half the cost of the US-ROK alliance and in fact last year sent more money to North Korea then what they paid to maintain the alliance. The fight to get Korea to properly fund the […]