American Negotiators Request that ROK Pay $4.7 Billion for US-ROK Alliance

GIKorea | November 8, 2019 | US-ROK Alliance | 5 Comments

At some point I would not be surprised if the Moon administration plays the anti-US card at some point to get the American negotiators to back down on increased cost sharing demands. In the past the usual suspects would already be out there protesting like crazy about something like this, but clearly the Moon administration has them in check for now:

Gen. Park Han-ki, chairman of Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, second from left front row, shakes hands with Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea and U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command (CFC), second from right front row, in a ceremony commemorating the 41st anniversary of the creation of the CFC Thursday at the U.S. Army Garrison Collier Community Fitness Center in central Seoul. [YONHAP]

Alarm has started to spread in Seoul over reported demands by the United States that Korea contribute to the upkeep of U.S. military forces beyond the Korean Peninsula.
According to Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Thursday, Washington’s chief negotiator in negotiations with Seoul over the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), James DeHart, told Korean lawmakers and government officials in a meeting that Korea should pay approximately $4.7 billion in alliance upkeep costs – around five times the amount it currently pays to keep U.S. forces stationed on its soil.
Yoon told a local broadcaster that this amount includes labor and logistics costs for the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) – which Seoul is already paying – but also maintenance and deployment costs for U.S. strategic assets on Korean soil and at U.S. military bases abroad, possibly in Guam, Hawaii and around the Indian Ocean.
Other expenses demanded from Korea include the costs of conducting combined military exercises and upkeep for civilian attaches to the USFK.
Joong Ang Ilbo

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