President Trump Alludes that South Korea Needs to Pay More for Defense
The next round of cost sharing negotiations should be interesting:
U.S. President Donald Trump, after a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, demanded Saturday a drastic increase in Korea’s contribution to defense sharing costs next year.
Joong Ang Ilbo
“We are defending wealthy countries. They can well afford to pay us,” Trump said Saturday in a campaign rally at the Resch Center Complex in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “There’s one country, I don’t want to say it, I don’t want to embarrass anybody […] I called the country. I called and said, listen, no good.”
Given the context and Trump’s earlier statements, it was obvious he was referring to South Korea.
“We are losing $4.5 billion. We can’t do this anymore,” Trump said. “He got very upset, angry […] He said, well, we will give you 500 million more, because the budget, you see, had already been set. I said, I want more. We argued. They paid us more than $500 million more for one phone call. I’m not bragging.”
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