The United States and South Korea are at an impasse over the military cost-sharing struggle they’ve been in for months. President Trump wanted a massive increase, and South Korea has increased a few times, upping their offer 13% recently, but Trump still rejected this.
The problem was this was the “best offer” South Korea said they could make before this month’s parliamentary election. Defense Secretary Mark Esper keeps pushing South Korea to just give in to Trump’s demands, but they won’t.
The Pentagon furloughed a number of South Korean workers this month to punish the country for not coming through with the unprecedentedly large demands. South Korea was already paying more than most nations, and was willing to pay an increase until Trump suddenly demanded a many-fold increase on top of that.
The two sides are still so far apart there is no sign of any deal coming soon. To make matters tougher for the Pentagon, this was believed to be a test of Trump demanding vastly more money from other nations hosting US troops, and he’s probably going to keep pushing that.in places like Germany and Japan even if they couldn’t seal the deal in South Korea.
I hope the US pushes itself into oblivion. The countries hosting US troops will be FAR better off without them. Tell the US to go to HELL.
President Trump could call South Korean President Moon Jae In’s bluff and pull out our 28,000 soldiers.
That will show them the US means business.
Terminate negotiations,
announce a 1 year staged withdrawal,
and let SKorea figure out it’s own future.
The US does not have the money for this nonsense.
Use this as an opportunity to end the occupation amicably. The parties couldn’t agree on costs. Just leave it at that.
Should be interesting what the MIC reaction would be if the Trump admin actually tried to pull out of South Korea.
For the military, its almost a holiday deployment to be stationed in a wealthy, first-world country.
South Korea is a Cold War I relic, comfortably occupied on a scale on a scale not seen after the U.S. partial pullout from Germany. Which was also a very nice place to be deployed.
South Korea could turn somewhere else for military equipment. During the Korean “police action” we managed to kill quite a few South Koreans, and, we have backed some interesting leaders. I believe we also had a hand in a massacre.
South Korea would be less likely to be dragged into a conflict we might start. If we told South Korea to sell their cars somewhere else, millions of jobs would be lost here in America. Inport/export business would be hit hard.
No Gun Ri massacre panicky troops early in the war.
If you did not insist on making North Korea an eternal enemy, South Korea could continue last year’s negotiations with the DPRK and come to some sort of peaceful agreement and none of the spending you call “defense” would be needed. I realize this is unAmerican, but let South Korea decide without your constant interference which has hampered it for decades.
On the other hand, South Koreans do have agency and could stand up for themselves if they so chose.
US and it’s protection racket.
When you first give in to pay a higher protection fee ( occupation ) to the mafia, they will threaten you to pay more and more.
I light of the layoffs of Koreans at US bases, Korea should reduce its offer. Maybe they could offer to help out with the Roosevelt, you know show us how to defeat the CV virus.
i wonder if this is Trump’s back handed way of exiting South Korea. Instead of threatening to leave, just leave! Korea can defend itself. Ditto Japan.