U.S., S. Korea at impasse over payments to cover troop costs

WASHINGTON — South Korea is resisting a demand from President Donald Trump’s administration for higher payments to defray the cost of basing U.S. forces on its territory, raising fears of a troop drawdown at a sensitive time for diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. negotiators have sought a 50 percent increase in South Korea’s annual payment, which last year was about $830 million, or about half of the estimated cost of hosting 28,500 U.S. troops, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

The U.S. stance reflects Trump’s view that allies have taken advantage of American military protection for decades — a view resented by many South Korean officials, who say they already pay more to the U.S. than almost any other American ally.

Talks that began in March on a five-year funding agreement were suspended after negotiators did not agree by the end of 2018, when the previous agreement expired.

South Korea, which initially called for adjusting annual payments only to account for inflation, is expected to make a counteroffer this month, but it is unlikely to satisfy the White House, U.S. officials said.

“The Koreans want to keep the status quo,” said one U.S. official who discussed the deliberations on the condition of anonymity. “But the president had made clear, not just to Korea but to other allies, that the status quo won’t do.”

The standoff is straining the long-standing alliance as Trump plans a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to renew the U.S. push for elimination of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal, and as South Korean President Moon Jae-in is pursuing his own rapprochement with Kim.

“If it was reasonable, we’d go along,” said Song Younggil, a member of the National Assembly. “But the Trumpian way of … accusing us of free-riding — we can’t cave to that. … Whether it’s Korean money or American money, it’s taxpayer funds.”

Song, who belongs to the same party as Moon and supports engagement with North Korea, said he believed that threats to remove U.S. troops are a negotiating tactic and would not happen given America’s broader strategic interests in Northeast Asia.

Trump’s ability to withdraw troops is limited. Congress last year passed a law barring the Pentagon from reducing troop levels in South Korea below 22,000 unless the president certifies to Congress that doing so is in U.S. national security interest.

Negotiators are considering various ideas to break the impasse, including having South Korea pay a portion of the U.S. cost of joint military training exercises, or to help defray costs of deploying U.S. bombers, warships, missile-defense batteries and other military assets when tensions with North Korea are high, according to one of the U.S. officials.

But major U.S.-South Korean military drills have been suspended since June, when Trump stopped them after his first summit with Kim in Singapore. In addition, the cost of such exercises is tiny compared with what South Korea pays every year for hosting U.S. troops.

The money doesn’t go to Washington, however. It’s used to pay salaries of Koreans working on U.S. bases in South Korea, or it takes the form of noncash contributions of services and construction at U.S. installations there.

South Korea also is funding more than 90 percent of a $10.8 billion construction project that will allow U.S. troops to move from bases near Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone along the border with North Korea to new installations farther south.

Park Hwee-rhak, a Kookmin University professor who has researched military cost-sharing agreements, said the dispute was “threatening the foundation of the alliance.”

He said South Korea could easily pay the increase given that its defense budget tops $42 billion this year.

Park said he believed that Trump was seriously considering removing U.S. troops from Korea, while Moon was forced to cater to a political base that includes student activists who have historically opposed the U.S. military presence in the country.

In a news conference last week, Moon said he believed that Kim understood that the presence of U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula was not directly tied to whether North Korea gives up its nuclear arsenal.

“U.S. troops in Korea, or strategic assets the U.S. has in Guam or Japan … don’t exist only in relation to North Korea but for the overall security and peace of Northeast Asia,” Moon said.

“My perspective is that there isn’t a high possibility they will be used as a condition in the denuclearization talks between the U.S. and North Korea.”