South Korea may agree to shoulder a larger burden of the cost of stationing U.S. troops on its soil as part of the two nations’ deal on trade, a former White House official said Monday. (Image: Yonhap)
WASHINGTON, March 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea may agree to shoulder a larger burden of the cost of stationing U.S. troops on its soil as part of the two nations’ deal on trade, a former White House official said Monday.
Victor Cha, who served as Asian affairs director on the National Security Council of George W. Bush, raised the possibility shortly after Seoul announced a tentative deal with Washington on amending their free trade agreement and exempting the Asian nation from new U.S. steel tariffs.
“If there is any tacit issue linkage with this agreement, we might expect to see South Korea agreeing to a higher burden sharing obligation in ongoing negotiations on a new Special Measures Agreement where the U.S. is pushing for South Korea to pay larger share of costs for stationing U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula,” he wrote in a commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he is currently senior adviser and Korea chair.
The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to deter North Korean aggression. The troop presence is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
This month the allies held their first round of negotiations to renew the current cost-sharing agreement that expires at the end of the year. Seoul’s contribution rose to some 960 billion won (US$889 million) this year from 150 billion won in 1991.
Cha said the compromise on trade issues was better than expected, given U.S. President Donald Trump’s previous threats to withdraw from the KORUS free trade agreement.
“The deal allows President Trump to make the argument that he has helped protect the U.S. steel and auto industries,” he wrote. “On steel, the U.S. essentially leveraged the unilateral tariff on steel (and South Korea’s exemption) to achieve a 30 percent reduction in South Korean exports.”
Cha also noted that the revision “represents efforts by both sides to keep the alliance on good footing given the need for policy coordination on the North Korean nuclear issue and the upcoming summits between the two Koreas and U.S. and North Korea.”
Trump all but nominated Cha to be his first ambassador to Seoul but withdrew the decision after the Korean-American reportedly voiced reservations about the administration’s considerations of a limited military strike on North Korea.
(Yonhap)
