TRUMP TELLS SEOUL: PAY UP
South Korea insists costs of missile defense system to be borne by US
SEOUL— Seoul on Friday brushed aside US President Donald Trump’s suggestion it should pay for a $1 billion missile defense system that the two allies are installing in South Korea to guard against threats from the North.
The first parts of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system have already been delivered to a former golf course in the South—infuriating China—at a time of heightened tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
Top US officials have said Thaad will be operational “within days.”
“I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. It’s a billion-dollar system,” Trump was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. “It’s phenomenal, shoots missiles right out of the sky.”
The two countries have been in a security alliance since the 1950-53 Korean war, and more than 28,000 US troops are stationed in the South.
US pays
Seoul retorted that under the Status of Forces Agreement that governs the US military presence in the country, the South would provide the Thaad site and infrastructure while the US would pay to deploy and operate it.
“There is no change to this basic position,” South Korea’s defense ministry said in a statement.
The row comes with tensions high on the Korean peninsula following a series of missile launches by the North and warnings from the Trump administration that military action was an “option on the table.”
Trump said there was “a chance” of “a major, major con- flict” with the North—which would put the South, whose capital is within range of Pyongyang’s artillery, at risk of gigantic casualties.
But earlier this week Washington said it would seek stronger sanctions against Pyongyang and held open the possibility of negotiations, with US Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry Harris saying it wanted to bring leader Kim Jong-un “to his senses, not to his knees.”
Beijing retaliates
The White House also wanted China to do more to rein in the North, with Trump saying he believed leader Xi Jinping was “trying very hard.”
But Beijing had been infuriated by the Thaad deployment, which it fears would weaken its own ballistic capabilities and upset the regional security balance.
Social media commentators derided Trump’s comments. “So he wants to start a war with North Korea and he wants South Korea to pay for it,” wrote one Twitter poster.
Tourism hit
Thaad is designed to intercept and destroy short and medium-range ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight.
South Koreans are ambivalent over its deployment, with only 51.8 percent in favor in a Korea Research opinion poll last month.
Seoul had already been hit hard by a series of measures imposed by Beijing as apparent retaliation.
The tourist industry has been hammered by a Chinese ban on tour groups, with visitor numbers from the Asian giant plummeting 40 percent in March.
Lotte Group, a South Korean retail giant, has had to shut down 85 of its 99 stores in China due to boycott calls after the group agreed to provide the golf course where Thaad is being installed.
Its accumulated losses as a result are reportedly expected to hit $1 billion in the first half of this year alone.
The Export-Import Bank of Korea said this month that South Korea could suffer up to $14 billion losses from reduced trade and falls in Chinese tourist numbers over the next two years.