Trump renews pressure on Seoul over defense costs

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. Courtesy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs

By Jung Da-min

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.”

Trump repeated the figure $500 million, which is not what Korea pays now. In February last year, the governments agreed on the 10th SMA for the defense cost-sharing for 2019, with South Korea increasing its contribution to about 1.04 trillion won ($896 million), up 8.2 percent from about 960 billion won the year before.

Right after the 2019 deal, Trump said South Korea agreed to pay $500 million more following a couple of phone calls ― an inaccurate figure.

Even after the 8.2 percent increase for 2019, U.S. pressure on South Korea to pay more has continued, with some media reports saying the U.S. wants South Korea to pay about $5 billion for this year, an increase of about five times from last year. Last month, there were other reports saying the U.S. has withdrawn its $5 billion demand but instead presented a 20 percent raise. The U.S. Department of State has denied the reports, saying such figures were “ungrounded speculation.”

Kim Jun-seok, a politics professor at Dongguk University, said the remarks clearly showed how Trump makes a deal. “The figures Trump said (in the interview) may not be accurate,” Kim said. “But he has a clear notion that his country should receive (in return for what it gives).”

Besides South Korea, Trump is also increasing its pressure on other countries, including NATO countries and Saudi Arabia, to pay more for the security alliance with the U.S.

There are also concerns that the U.S. might withdraw the USFK troops as it withdrew its troops from Syria.

“I moved our troops out on the border between Turkey and Syria. That turned out to be such a successful move,” Trump said during the interview. “Look what happened. Now they protect, they've been fighting over for that border for a thousand years. Why should we do it?”