By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea and the United States have agreed to begin early negotiations on how to share the cost of keeping U.S. forces in the country, aiming to reach an agreement before the possible re-election of Donald Trump as president, local media reported Tuesday.
Trump, who has established himself as the undisputed favorite for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, had accused, during his presidency, his main Asian ally, South Korea, of “taking advantage” of the power American military and asked him to pay up to 5 billion dollars per year. for the American deployment.
Negotiations on the Special Measures Agreement were stalled for months under the Trump administration, and the deal was finalized when South Korea agreed to a 13.9% increase in its contribution, the highest annual increase for almost two decades.
The deal is set to expire in 2025, and Yonhap News Agency and Newspim news service cited unnamed diplomatic sources as saying South Korea and the United States had agreed to begin negotiations this year on extending the agreement until 2026 and beyond. Negotiations usually take place just before the existing agreement ends.
South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk declined to comment on the reports, saying the government would prepare for the upcoming negotiations in a “systematic and strategic manner.”
A spokesperson for the US State Department said a delegation from its Office of Security Negotiations and Agreements visited South Korea from December 11 to 17, 2023 to discuss the implementation of the 11th Accord on existing special measures (SMA).
“We will work closely with (South Korea) to prepare for the 12th WFS negotiations,” the spokesperson said in an emailed response to a Reuters question, while adding: “We have not “still made a decision on the details of the negotiations.” “
U.S. troops are deployed to South Korea as part of both countries’ efforts to deter North Korea, which is accelerating its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
South Korea began shouldering the costs of U.S. deployments, used to finance local labor, construction of military installations and other logistical support, in the early 1990s.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Sonali Paul)
