Should USFK Soldiers Be Considered Mercenaries If ROK Pays More for Upkeep of Alliance?

Here is some more Korean media criticism about the US-ROK cost sharing talks from Oh Young-jin in the Korea Times:

U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is under attack not by enemy but by its own commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump.

Trump is prioritizing the size of the bill host Korea pays toward upkeep and is indulging himself in an unwarranted bromance with the head of the enemy. 

The risk is bringing confusion to the mission and raison d’etre of the peacekeepers and freedom fighters who have stood ready for decades to throw down their lives to help protect Koreans from North Korean invasions and assert a U.S.-led balance of power in the region where interests of big powers often clash. So a blow to the USFK credibility is feared. 

Already, Trump’s first defense secretary, James Mattis, the soldier of the soldiers, called it quits over Trump’s acts of belittling the allies, calling them freeloaders being piggybacked by the U.S., and his boss’s readiness to sleep with enemies like the North’s young dictator Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Korea Times

Here is the most humorous line from the article:

One commentator wondered aloud whether if Korea pays what the U.S. reportedly demands, it would make GIs mercenaries that work for money with no regard to common cause and purpose. 

First of all hardly any soldier in USFK even knows or cares about the on going US-ROK cost sharing talks. Secondly if and when a new deal is struck it is not like USFK soldiers are getting a cut from whatever the Korean side pays.

Regardless of how much Korea pays it makes absolutely no difference to the average USFK soldier and thus it is total hyperbole to claim that USFK soldiers would begin feeling like mercenaries because the ROK pays more for the upkeep of the alliance.