US Troop Cuts Not Intended to Be Discussed at Trump-Kim Summit

US Envoy says cuts have 'never been discussed'

Trump Administration officials say that they have no plans to discuss any US withdrawal of troops from South Korea during next week’s Trump-Kim Summit, and that nothing about troop levels is even on the agenda right now.

Officials said that they couldn’t rule out Trump or Kim adding this as another topic of discussion, despite no current plans to do so, saying it “remains to be seen.” US special envoy Stephen Biegun suggested this was unlikely, however.

Biegun said that there have been no discussions of trade-offs regarding US troop levels, and that if they were to be discussed it would have to involve South Korea as well. Still, so far it has never come up.

It also doesn’t appear to be a priority for North Korea. All indications are that North Korea wants an end to the Korean war, and normalization of ties. Given how much artillery North Korea has, the US ground troops are a relatively minor issue if fighting did break out again.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.