This is really nothing new on the U.S. President’s part; he has been very consistent on South Korea paying more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance. The only question at this point is how much is the increase going to be?:
South Korea’s chief negotiator for defense cost-sharing Jeong Eun-bo, third from right, and his U.S. counterpart James DeHart, third from left, hold a meeting for the fifth round of the 11th Special Measures Agreement (SMA) negotiations between the countries, at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses headquarters in Seoul, Dec. 17.
U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly increased pressure on South Korea to pay more for the upkeep of 28,500 United States Forces Korea (USFK), ahead of the next round of negotiations for the ongoing defense cost-sharing talks scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., Tuesday and Wednesday.
The 11th Special Measures Agreement (SMA) ― as the talks are called ― between Washington and Seoul began in September last year for this year’s defense cost-sharing, but its year-end deadline has passed with the countries failing to narrow their differences.
“These rich countries have to pay for it. South Korea gave us $500 million,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News, Friday (local time). “They’re a wealthy country. They build all your television sets, they took that away from us, they build ships, they build a lot of things. I said we’re protecting and you’ve got to pay. They paid us $500 million; they’re going to pay us a lot more.”
There is a new book out and of course to create traction in the media with it the author has to claim that President Trump is an idiot:
During that conversation, Wead wrote, Trump reiterated his belief that Obama would have gone to war with the North had he stayed in office.
“And I also think that thirty to one hundred million people could have been killed,” Wead quoted the president as saying.
South Korea has 51.2 million people and North Korea has a population of 25 million.
Trump then expressed disbelief at experts’ predictions that 100,000-200,000 people would die, a number he said was the equivalent of the population of a South Korean village.
“Well, as you know, Seoul, the capital city, is right by the so-called border,” he continued, according to Wead. “And that is a tough border by the way. An impenetrable border. And Seoul has a population of thirty million people. Kim has ten thousand guns, artillery, they call them cannons. He doesn’t even need a nuclear weapon to create one of the greatest calamities in history.”
When I read Trump’s comments I clearly understood that when he was talking about Seoul he was referencing the Seoul metropolitan area. The Seoul city center has 10 million, but the metro area has 25 million. Also when he is talking about upwards of 100 million casualties how do we know he wasn’t including if a nuclear weapon was dropped on Tokyo or other major cities? It is context like this that is important, but to get media attention he must be described as an idiot, so mission accomplished by this author.
The only real idiots are whoever told him a war on the Korean peninsula would only lead to 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. If they did not use nukes I could maybe understand that number, but I find it hard to believe that if North Korea went all in and used nuclear weapons, that only that many people would die.
A quote I did find interesting that may explain why President Trump is pushing so hard on the Moon administration on USFK cost sharing is the status of the THAAD battery in South Korea:
“Do you know how much we spend defending South Korea? Four and half billion dollars a year. Figure that one out?” he added.
Trump has reportedly demanded that South Korea raise its contribution to shared defense costs to US$5 billion next year, a five-fold increase from this year.
Trump also complained to Wead that the people who treated the U.S. the worst were its allies.
“And you’ve heard the story with South Korea with the missiles system, with the THAAD anti-missile system?” he was quoted as saying.
I read that to mean that he is not happy about how the Moon administration is allowing the blockade of the road to the THAAD battery to occur. ROK Heads may remember that the road is still blocked and all supplies and personnel to the battery have to be flown in by helicopter. The battery though there to protect South Koreans is frequently used by Moon’s leftist allies to promote wild conspiracy theories and anti-Americanism.
Trump we have seen has a long memory when it comes to things he does not like and maybe the THAAD issue is something he is still unhappy about and influencing the cost sharing talks?
I wonder if the U.S. negotiators have learned a few techniques from the North Koreans to pressure the ROK on the cost sharing issue. Storming out of negotiations as the media is describing it comes off as very North Korean like and not a good look for U.S. negotiators in my opinion:
Jeong Eun-bo, South Korea’s chief negotiator for defense cost-sharing talks with the U.S., speaks during a press briefing at the foreign ministry on Nov. 19, 2019, after the talks were abruptly cut short. (Yonhap)
Defense cost-sharing talks between South Korea and the United States were abruptly cut short Tuesday as the U.S. negotiators walked out of the meeting and accused Seoul of making proposals falling short of “fair and equitable burden sharing.”
The unexpected ending underlined wide differences between the two sides after Washington’s reported demand for a fivefold increase in Seoul’s sharing of the cost of the upkeep of about 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea.
The latest round of negotiations, which began Monday, was supposed to last through Tuesday. But Tuesday’s second day of talks ended in about an hour as the U.S. negotiators left the meeting, South Korean officials said.
“Unfortunately, the proposals that were put forward by the Korean team were not responsive to our request for fair and equitable burden sharing,” James DeHart of the U.S. State Department told local media shortly after the talks ended.
“As a result, we cut short our participation in the talks today in order to give the Korean side some time to reconsider and, I hope, to put forward new proposals that would enable both sides to work towards a mutually acceptable agreement,” he said. “We look forward to resuming our negotiations when the Korean side is ready to work on the basis of partnership on the basis of mutual trust.”
You can read more at the link, but it appears what is going on is that the ROK is refusing to include payment for the deployment of strategic assets to the ROK like aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. that support exercises as well as show of forces against North Korea.
The Moon administration is probably liking this because politically it will help them in upcoming parliamentary elections early next year if they are perceived to be standing up to the Trump administration who is trying to fleece the hard working Korean taxpayer. This is good politics for them and likely why there will be no movement on this issue unless the U.S. side gives up the big increase in ROK contributions.
It appears that the ROK strategy for not paying more for USFK cost sharing is to imply that they may reduce their purchase of U.S. weapons if they pay more:
President Moon Jae-in outlined to U.S. President Donald Trump Korea’s plans to purchase many American weapons over the next three years as they held a summit in New York on Monday.
A Blue House official told reporters that Moon during the talks briefed Trump on Seoul’s weapons purchases over the past decade and “also plans for our purchases for the next three years.”
Moon is expected to have explained to Trump Seoul’s purchase of American weapons systems between 2009 and 2018. This is likely to have included the acquisition of 40 F-35A Lockheed Martin stealth fighters and three American-made Aegis combat systems, worth some $6.279 billion, according to data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
During the 10-year time frame, Korea ranked as the fourth-largest U.S. weapons importer, following Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Sipri data.
I think President Trump has a far different definition of what “reasonable” means than President Moon:
NEW YORK, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in told U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday that his government is open to sharing the cost of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on a “reasonable and fair” level, a Cheong Wa Dae official said after their summit here.
You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if President Moon tries to raise anti-US sentiment like he has done with Japan if he can’t get Trump to back down on significantly increasing the ROK’s cost sharing amount each year.
I don’t think a technocrat is going to change President Trump’s mind that the ROK needs to pay much more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance, but I guess we will see what happens:
The government is considering naming a non-diplomat official, such as a financial technocrat, to head negotiations with the U.S. on sharing the cost for the upkeep of American troops, sources said Friday.
That would mark a departure from the tradition that officials from either the foreign or defense ministries have led the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) aimed at determining how much South Korea should shoulder the cost of U.S. troop presence in the country.
The two sides expected to launch the negotiations around mid-September amid widespread indications that the United States could ask for a massive raise in Seoul’s share of the cost of the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).
The next round of cost sharing negotiations should be interesting:
U.S. President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the White House in Washington on Friday and hold a summit discussing North Korea issues. [AP/YONHAP]
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.
“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.”
The next US-ROK cost sharing negotiations will be very interesting if this demand is made:
The US Navy aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan moored at the Yokosuka US Naval Base, in Tokyo, in May 2017.
For years, President Donald Trump has complained that countries hosting American troops aren’t paying enough. Now he wants to get even, and then some.
Under White House direction, the administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other country hosting U.S. troops pay the full price of American soldiers deployed on their soil — plus 50 percent or more for the privilege of hosting them, according to a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter. (…….)
Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the administration was sending a deliberate message by demanding “Cost Plus 50” from South Korea first, even though that effort fell short. “We have a more integrated military with South Korea than with any other ally,” Cha said. “To send this message to a front-line Cold War ally is trying to say very clearly that they want a paradigm shift with the way they do host-nation support.” [Bloomberg]
I wonder if President Trump is given briefing notes to review before he talks because this is a big difference in numbers he misstated:
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday (local time.) / AP
U.S. President Donald Trump said South Korea’s payment for the U.S. troop presence will increase further only days after both sides signed a one-year deal for the defense cost sharing.
“Working with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, they (South Korea) agreed to pay, yesterday, $500 million (560 billion) more toward their defense,” Trump said in a Cabinet meeting, Tuesday (local time).
On Sunday, Seoul and Washington signed the one-year provisional deal on defense cost sharing, called the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) for the upkeep of United States Forces Korea (USFK).
Under the 2019 SMA, the South will pay 1.04 trillion won toward the upkeep of stationing 28,500 U.S. troops here, up 8.2 percent from the previous year. This is an increase of 78.7 billion won, compared with last year, not the amount stated by Trump.
It remains unclear why the U.S. president made the remark with such an obviously factual error. But it is highly likely that he overstated the amount to score a political point there and raise his approval rating.
It has been speculated that the Trump administration would agree to end the Korean War and it appears that is the direction Trump-Kim II Summit negotiations are going:
President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping / Korea Times file
President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping may join the summit to be held between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un this month in Vietnam to declare an end to the Korean War.
As U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun stated last week, President Trump is open to formally ending the war as part of measures to spur denuclearization talks with North Korea. This is an idea Moon, Xi and Kim have all been supporting.
One major obstacle was North Korea’s opposition to the continued presence of U.S. troops in South Korea. However, the North has reportedly changed its stance on this.
U.S. and South Korean officials said ending the Korean War is a major topic in the ongoing pre-summit talks in Pyongyang.
You can read more a the link, but I have said this repeatedly, North Korea does not have to call for a withdrawal of US troops when its surrogates in South Korea will do it for them.
Anti-US leftist groups will claim that a peace treaty calls into question why US troops are needed in Korea. Two of the largest anti-US leftist groups, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society are already advancing this idea.
I would not be surprised that these groups and other large anti-US leftist groups eventually mobilize to protest and blockade US military bases to disrupt operations and make life miserable for US servicemembers in Korea. The THAAD site is already experiencing this.
If the traffic at Camp Humphreys is already bad can you imagine what would happen if people had to deal with protesters as well while trying to get through the gates?
The protests combined with the ROK government playing hardball on USFK cost sharing would be intended to convince President Trump to withdraw some if not all of the US troops. This is why North Korea doesn’t have to call for US troop withdrawals when they have surrogates to do it for them.
