Pentagon correspondents who kept their translation headsets on while South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo spoke on Monday heard two interpretations of just how far apart the sides are on reaching a cost-sharing agreement that helps protect against threats from North Korea and China.
Jeong said through an American translator that the “United States’ government demands” are “substantially higher” than what South Korea is willing to pay.
Jeong’s personal translator, standing at his side at the podium, chose not to mention this, saying, “It is true there remains a difference.”
Korea experts speaking at the Hudson Institute on Thursday said that the gap between the two allies’ negotiations could be an opening for China and North Korea.
“China has a very strong interest in what goes on in the Korean Peninsula,” said Patricia Kim, a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Institute of Peace. One of China’s primary objectives, she said, was “gradually rolling back the United States presence.”
“Coordinating our message will be difficult. Even in the best of times, it is difficult,” she said. “It will be difficult even more so now with the United States and South Korea locked in contentious negotiations over burden sharing.”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday said that American forces “are solely there to protect the Republic of Korea on the peninsula.”
Panelists at the Hudson Institute event on Wednesday described the U.S. troop presence in Korea as offering both defense and deterrence. This includes stemming the threat of North Korean ballistic missile tests while the rogue nation flaunts its nuclear capability.
Meanwhile, South Korea and the U.S. are billions of dollars apart from signing a new Special Measures Agreement.
The Trump administration wants South Korea to pay $5 billion toward the cost of stationing some 28,000 troops on the peninsula, while South Korea is prepared to pay less than $1 billion.
At Trump’s heed, South Korea increased its payment by 8.2% last year, to $870 million.
At the Hudson Institute panel Wednesday, Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, offered his perspective.
“Excessive demands that are presented in a combative manner are needlessly straining relations with allies at a time that we should be standing shoulder to shoulder in the face of common threats,” he said. “Alliances are not valued in dollars and cents, and they should not be seen as moneymaking operations for the United States.”
In the year marking the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, Jeong was taken to the Korean War Veterans Memorial during his visit to Washington. There, he saw life-size statues of American service members in full combat gear wearing heavy coats and trudging through rugged terrain as they did to push back communism more than a half-century ago.
Afterward, Esper said the alliance was “as vital today as it was in the 1950s.”
Still, Klingner today noted 13 canceled allied military exercises in the past two years, while North Korea launched 26 missiles in 2019 — its highest number of U.N. Security Council Resolution violations in a single year. North Korea also unveiled five new short-range missile systems.
During his appearance alongside Jeong on Monday, Esper said, “Much work needs to be done to bridge the gap between our two sides.”
