U.S. Negotiator Says Trump Administration “Not Focused” on Pursuing $5 Billion Increase in Alliance Cost Sharing
As I have been saying the U.S. was never going to get $5 billion from the ROK and they likely knew this, to pressure them in other areas such as increased weapons purchases and environmental clean up costs:
The top U.S. negotiator in defense cost-sharing talks with South Korea said Wednesday that his team is “not focused on” its initial demand for a five-fold increase to US$5 billion in Seoul’s financial contributions to the upkeep of American troops here.
In an interview with the Korean press corps, James DeHart also pointed out that South Korea’s weapons purchases from the United States are an “important consideration for us in the burden-sharing context.”
DeHart and his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Eun-bo, held the latest round of two-day negotiations in Seoul this week but failed to narrow the gaps over how much Seoul should pay next year and beyond for the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).
“I do want to say, very importantly, there have been some big figures that have been repeated many times in the Korean media, and those figures do not reflect where we are in our discussions with the ROK today,” he said. ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but if the Trump administration gets a $1 billion extra in weapons purchases and Seoul to fold on environmental clean up demands of closed out US bases will the critics give credit to Trump?
