Tag: US-ROK Alliance

It seems that President Trump does not have a high opinion of the recently concluded joint US-ROK military exercise:

U.S. President Donald Trump has called the recently concluded South Korea-U.S. combined military exercise “unnecessary” and a “total waste of money” despite heightened tensions caused by Pyongyang’s recent launches of short-range projectiles.

During the Group of Seven summit in France on Sunday, Trump also told reporters that Pyongyang’s projectile launches do not represent a breach of his agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that involves nuclear and longer-range ballistic missile tests.

Pyongyang tested what it claims to be a “new” super-large multiple rocket launch system Saturday — the first such projectile launch since the allied exercise ended Tuesday, and the seventh since July 25 when the North started firing missiles and projectiles in protest in the runup to the exercise.

“I’m not happy about it. But again, he’s not in violation of an agreement,” Trump said before his bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, according to a transcript released by the White House. (………..)

“I said that to all of my people. I said, ‘I don’t want to interfere because I think if you want to do them, you can do them, if you think it’s necessary. But I think it’s a total waste of money,'” he said.

Trump went on to say, “I think it was unnecessary to do, frankly.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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.

It is strange times in Korea when the conservative politicians are complaining about President Trump and the Korean left don’t like him either, but they really don’t know why:

Korean conservatives are generally pro-U.S. and advocates of a strong Seoul-Washington alliance. 

Yet their alliance appears to be cracking following U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks on issues crucial for South Korea. The real estate developer-turned-politician has expressed his interest in trading the blood-forged alliance for an increase in national revenue and appears to favor North Korea over the South. 

Last Friday he even made fun of South Korea ― along with Japan and the European Union ― mimicking the Korean accent before his deep-pocketed supporters. 

Their sense of humiliation has seen even pro-U.S. conservative politicians speak out to slam Trump. Some lashed out at the president, calling him “empty-headed” or “too inept to figure out what’s right and wrong.”

“With the ‘money is everything’ mind of a merchant, Trump seems to be confused about what is his ally and foe,” Rep. Cho Kyung-tae of the main opposition Liberty Party of Korea (LPK) said on a radio show Tuesday. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

There will probably be more missiles being fired by North Korea next week as the joint exercise between the ROK and South Korea is scheduled to begin:

South Korea and the United States will stage joint military drills as scheduled despite warnings from North Korea, the South Korean military authority said Sunday.

The joint drills will begin Monday with a computer-simulated command post exercise (CPX) to cope with any emergency on the Korean Peninsula and last for half a month, according to the authority.

After the CPX, the allies will spend the remaining 10 days intensively verifying Seoul’s capabilities for its envisioned retaking of wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops from Washington.

But many watchers say the joint military drills could prompt further provocation from the North.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Considering that last year the US negotiators had to fight to get the ROK to pay $879 million for this year’s upkeep, I don’t expect them to pay $5 billion next year:

South Korea and the United States have agreed to conduct discussions in a “reasonable and fair” way on how to share the cost for the upkeep of American troops here, a foreign ministry official here said Tuesday.

The two sides talked about the upcoming negotiations over Seoul’s share of the cost for the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) for next year, when U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton visited Korea last week, the official said.

The local daily JoongAng Ilbo reported that Washington has tentatively decided to request that Seoul pay US$5 billion under a renewed bilateral cost-sharing arrangement for next year, more than a fivefold increase from the previous year.

“When U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was visiting Korea on July 23 and 24, South Korea and the U.S. agreed to have consultations over the sharing of the defense cost in a reasonable and fair direction,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it would have been interesting to see the face of Moon administration officials when John Bolton dropped the $5 billion number.

The next round of cost sharing negotiations should be interesting:

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.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is what the ROK Defense Minister had to say about any possible reductions in the size of USFK:

South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo has ensured there will be no reduction of U.S. troops in South Korea. 

Meeting with reporters during his visit to Joint Base Meyer in Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday, the minister addressed speculations of a possible downsizing of U.S. Forces Korea triggered by ongoing upgrades of South Korea’s military weapons system. 

He said the augmentation of the forces is to further enhance the South Korean military’s capacity.  

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but as I have always said, any reduction of USFK would likely happen after a peace treaty is signed. The left wing activist groups in South Korea will use a peace treaty as an excuse to protest the continued presence of USFK. These protests would be intended to make life difficult for US troops just like it currently is for the troops stationed at the THAAD site in South Korea.

In the Japan Times they have an op-ed published in response to the White House’s Cost Plus 50 strategy for paying for the stationing of US troops.

The “Cost Plus 50” formula means the White House is aiming for allies to pay 100 percent of U.S. stationing costs plus a premium of 50 percent on top of that. While there are arguments to be made about whether such a goal is even achievable (spoiler alert: it is not), it is important to highlight some of the bad assumptions that underwrite the belief that “allies don’t pay enough.” (……..)

Bad assumption 4: It is easy to tally up the cost of stationing forces overseas.
Reality: For the administration to demand Cost Plus 50, it must first assess how much it actually costs to station forces overseas. Take it from a former alliance manager who has run the “cost drill,” there are simply too many inputs to produce a figure without arbitrarily making decisions on what to include or exclude.
Do you include the salaries of overseas service members? What about costs for moving personnel and their families? How about rotational units who are only in a host nation for a few months out of the year? Do you add the cost of running overseas schools for dependent family members? Commissaries? Recreation areas? Uniform clothing sales stores?
How about research and development for the equipment that is stationed there? Should a country pay more if it has F-35s instead of F-16s or ballistic missile defense-capable destroyers instead of non-BMD capable ones?
The list goes on and on, and even then, the list ignores things like sunk costs and the fact those forces are overseas for U.S. interests.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link.