In a déjà vu moment for Koreans, former U.S. President Donald Trump insinuated in a recent interview that the United States could withdraw American troops stationed in Korea if Seoul does not pay up more to support them.
The Republican presidential candidate said, “We have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position,” questioning why the United States has to defend a “very wealthy country,” in an interview with Time magazine reported on Tuesday.
Last week in Honolulu, Seoul and Washington began a new round of defense cost-sharing negotiations for the upkeep of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), which is actually 28,500 troops strong.
As president, Trump consistently pressured Seoul to pay an exponentially higher amount in burden-sharing, much to Korean officials’ dismay, leading to stalled negotiations for the 11th Special Measures Agreement (SMA) until an agreement was belated reached in 2021.
“I want South Korea to treat us properly,” Trump told Time magazine, referring to the 11th SMA talks during his presidency, claiming Seoul was “paying virtually nothing for 40,000 troops that we had there.”
Trump has often inflated the number of soldiers stationed in the area and downplayed Seoul’s contributions.
Time magazine reported that Trump’s remarks suggest that the United States could withdraw troops if Korea doesn’t pay more for defense should he be reelected in the U.S. presidential election in November,
Trump said in the interview that U.S. troops are “in a somewhat precarious position, to put it mildly, because right next door happens to be a man I got along with very well, but a man who nevertheless, he’s got visions of things.”
He apparently was referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Trump and Kim, who initially exchanged unsettling fire and fury rhetoric in 2017, forged an unlikely friendship over letters and summits during a period of denuclearization negotiations between North Korea and the United States in 2018 and early 2018.
“We’ve essentially paid for much of their military, free of charge,” Trump said in reference to Seoul. “And they agreed to pay billions of dollars. And now, probably now that I’m gone, they’re paying very little.”
Seoul and Washington agreed to a six-year defense cost-sharing deal, with Korea paying 1.1833 trillion won, worth around $1 billion in 2021, an unprecedented 13.9 percent increase from the previous year, though less than the fivefold hike initially demanded by Trump.
The current SMA is set to expire at the end of next year.
Trump also alleged to Time magazine that South Korea was trying to “bring that number way, way down to what it was before, which was almost nothing” through the latest SMA negotiations with the Joe Biden administration.
Seoul officials have said that Seoul and Washington started the 12th SMA talks earlier than usual, amid concerns that a change in administration could cause friction between the two allies.
Trump has often questioned the necessity of extending a nuclear umbrella to U.S. allies in East Asia and openly complained about the cost of deploying strategic assets for the defense of the Korean Peninsula.
Last year, the allies established a Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) through the Washington Declaration adopted during a summit between President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden to strengthen extended deterrence in light of the North’s nuclear threat. It also took into consideration the possibility of a changed in administration on either side.
BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]
