South Korea is “paying very little” for the U.S. troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula and the “very wealthy country” must pay more for continued American military presence there, former President Donald Trump said in an interview released this week.
In a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, Mr. Trump said that U.S. allies must pay more if they want American troops to remain. It’s a familiar refrain for the former president, who has typically directed his most intense fire at European nations and NATO for, in his view, not spending enough on defense and contributing too little to the massive U.S. military deployments on their continent.
But Mr. Trump says that Seoul, too, must contribute more, a position he also articulated during his four years in the White House. Mr. Trump’s demands at the time led to a string of tense meetings between the two allies over how much to increase South Korea’s financial contribution to the American deployment there.
Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, in his interview with Time suggested, but didn’t explicitly say, that he may reconsider the U.S. troop posture in South Korea without a greater financial commitment. The U.S. has about 28,500 troops stationed there, though Mr. Trump said the number is 40,000.
“And we have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position. And I told South Korea that it’s time that you step up and pay,” Mr. Trump told Time. “They’ve become a very wealthy country. We’ve essentially paid for much of their military, free of charge. And they agreed to pay billions of dollars. And now probably now that I’m gone, they’re paying very little.
“I don’t know if you know that they renegotiated the deal I made. And they’re paying very little,” he said. “But they paid us billions, many billions of dollars, for us having troops there. From what I’m hearing, they were able to renegotiate with the Biden administration and bring that number way, way down to what it was before, which was almost nothing.”
U.S. and South Korean officials reportedly began negotiating last week on a new “Special Measures Agreement,” the deal between Washington and Seoul that keeps U.S. troops on the peninsula and establishes a cost-sharing structure.
Under the current SMA, which expires at the end of 2025, South Korea agreed to increase its payments in 2021 by 13.9%, according to The Associated Press. That equates to about $1 billion. In each year after 2021, South Korea’s contribution increase was tied to the annual increase in the country’s overall defense budget.
Under the current cost-sharing agreement, South Korea pays about 44% of the total cost of the U.S. military presence in the country, according to the AP.
The decision to begin SMA talks between the U.S. and South Korea now, a full 20 months before the current agreement ends, may be tied to the possibility Mr. Trump could soon return to the White House. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency noted in an article posted Wednesday: “Observers have said that the allies had sought to hold SMA talks earlier than usual amid concerns that should former Trump return to the White House for a second term, he could drive a hard bargain over a new SMA in a way that could cause friction in the alliance.”
Mr. Trump had kind words for South Korea as an ally, but he left little doubt that he will in fact try to drive a harder bargain.
“Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country. But they’re a very wealthy country and why wouldn’t they want to pay?” Mr. Trump told Time. “They were actually, they were a pleasure to deal with. Not easy initially, but ultimately, they became a pleasure to deal with. And they agreed to pay billions [of] dollars to the United States for our military being there. Billions, many billions.”
U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953. Their presence has become especially important, from a strategic point of view, because of the rise of tensions between the U.S. and China.
North Korea, meanwhile, has deepened its relationship with another U.S. adversary, Russia, and has supplied artillery shells and other materials for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. And Pyongyang also has used increasingly hostile rhetoric toward Seoul in recent months while also routinely conducting new missile tests and diversifying its platforms of weapons of mass destruction beyond its ground-based missile units.
On another hot-button regional issue, Mr. Trump was also asked whether he would authorize U.S. troops would come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
“Well, I’ve been asked this question many times and I always refuse to answer it because I don’t want to reveal my cards” publicly, Mr. Trump said. “But no. China knows my answer very well. But they have to understand that things like that can’t come easy. But I will say that I have never publicly stated although I want to, because I wouldn’t want to give away any negotiating abilities by giving information like that to any reporter.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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