S. Korean media warn of ‘ Trump risk’ to alliance

South Korean media on Monday warned of a “Trump risk” threatening the alliance between Washington and Seoul amid high tensions over the North’s weapons ambitions.

The two countries are bound by a defense pact and 28,500 US troops are stationed in the South.

But the new US president has said in recent interviews that Seoul should pay for a “billion- dollar” US missile defence system being deployed in the South to guard against threats from the nuclear- armed North.

He has also pushed for renegotiation of what he called a “horrible” bilateral free trade pact that went into effect five years ago, calling it an “unacceptable ... deal made by Hillary.”

The remarks stunned Seoul, with South Korean politicians immediately rejecting his push for payment for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ( THAAD) battery.

“Trump’s mouth rattling Korea- US alliance” said a frontpage headline in South Korea’s top- selling Chosun daily on Monday.

“If either country keeps reducing the alliance to the matter of money or the economy, it is bound to undermine basic trust.”

Seoul, it said, needed to come up with “various Plan Bs” for the future.

Over the weekend, Seoul’s presidential office said US National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster had appeared to backtrack on THAAD, telling his South Korean counterpart by phone that the US would bear the cost of the missile deployment as initially agreed.

“McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan- jin, that the US alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia- Pacific region,” the South’s presidential office said.

But McMaster told Fox News Sunday that the “last thing” he would ever do was contradict the president, and that “the relationship on THAAD, on our defense relationship going forward, will be renegotiated as it’s going to be with all of our allies.”