Lee Min-hyung joined The Korea Times in 2014 and has worked as a journalist mainly in Korea’s finance, tech and automotive industry. He specializes in content creation, breaking news and in-depth analysis currently on transportation and mobility. You can reach him via mhlee@koreatimes.co.kr.
USFK cost deal ratified without debates
A plenary session is underway at the National Assembly, Friday. Yonhap
By Lee Min-hyung
By Lee Min-hyung
The National Assembly ratified Friday the administration's recent one-year deal with the United States to share costs for the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea, despite lingering controversies.
The deal was endorsed in a plenary session, a day after the Assembly's committee for diplomacy and unification approved the deal as signed, considering the “importance of the alliance with the U.S.” The opposition parties did not object to the amount to be paid.
Under the 2019 Special Measures Agreement (SMA), the government will pay 1.04 trillion won ($915 million), up 8.2 percent from the previous year, for the upkeep of the 28,500 members of the United States Forces Korea (USFK) here.
The two countries signed the provisional contract on Feb. 8 and it went into effect Friday after lawmakers passed the deal in a 139-33 vote.
This year's SMA was the first that the two countries had renewed since Donald Trump became president in 2017. Previous defense cost-sharing deals were signed every five years.
The Trump administration was critical of previous deals, saying South Korea should share more of the cost burden. For this reason, it took almost a year for the two countries to narrow their differences on specific terms, such how much and the contract period.
Even after the sides reached an agreement, controversy surrounding the contract showed no signs of abating, following reports that the U.S. would use the money for other purposes than the USFK upkeep.
Last month, a fact sheet unveiled by the U.S. Department of Defense showed that the Trump administration plans to use some of the money to build his border wall with Mexico.
This sparked a strong backlash from South Korea, as this was in contrast to Trump's continued claim that the U.S. suffers losses protecting its allies. He particularly cited military exercises between Seoul and Washington as a serious cost burden on the U.S.
On Thursday, a South Korean Ministry of National Defense report said that the U.S. used 95.4 billion won of the fund on maintenance of jets and military equipment in the United States Forces Japan (USFJ) during the past five years.
The report said Washington used the money for non-USFK maintenance costs between 2014 and 2018, when the previous SMA was in effect.
The defense ministry said the money was used on F-15 jets and HH-60 helicopters from the USFJ. It said these can be deployed to the Korean Peninsula if necessary.
But Rep. Chun Jung-bae, of the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace, criticized the government for what he called “lax management” of the costs.
“The gist of the SMA is to maintain the USFK, but the report showed otherwise,” Chun said. “The government should carry out a comprehensive audit on how the money is used.”