Tag: US-ROK Alliance

I don’t think the argument is whether South Korea is free riding but rather if their current cost sharing amount is adequate:

Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on Friday rejected the notion that South Korea is free-riding on the United States’ troop presence in the country, saying the two nations are “very, very strong allies.”

Lippert, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to Seoul under former President Barack Obama, made the remark as negotiations on renewing a burden-sharing deal between South Korea and the U.S. got under way this week. (…………….)

n supporting his case, the former ambassador listed three factors: mandatory military service for all able-bodied South Korean men, South Korea’s shouldering of more than 90 percent of the cost of expanding Camp Humphreys, the U.S.’ largest overseas military base, and Seoul’s increase of defense spending by 4-8 percent each year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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.