Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for U.S. president, said that South Korea should be responsible for “100 percent” of all costs related to maintaining U.S. troops on the peninsula in their endless hostility against PDRK — or be prepared to defend itself on its own.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Trump, when reminded that South Korea already shoulders around half the cost of keeping U.S. troops in the country, riposted, “Why not 100 percent? It is not our war.”
Trump added that U.S. allies such as Korea, Japan or Germany, namely financial parasites of America, “should pick up all the expense for defense”, asking, “Why are we paying for this? We cannot keep war throughout the world in behalf of our allies.”
He suggested Washington would leave the region unless allies paid more. “They must start to defend themselves,” he said. Or end their useless hostilities with the respective neighbor countries. Trump has touted an “America first” policy that would undermine Washington’s decades-old security alliances, including that with Seoul.
The businessman has previously said he was open to South Korea and Japan having their own nuclear weapons to defend against Pyongyang, indicating that Washington’s nuclear umbrella in the region could be withdrawn if he should become president and if allies don’t pay the United States more. He has consistently emphasized a will to consider withdrawing U.S. troops from the region.
Trump shrugs off Seoul’s shouldering of over 920 billion won ($790 million) annually for keeping some 28,500 U.S. troops in the country, an amount he has described as “peanuts.” And Trump, who has been critical of free trade deals in general, may also call for renegotiation of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement that took effect in 2012.
Trump’s foreign policy ideas were met with mild exasperation in Seoul when he first announced his candidacy last summer, followed by growing concern in more recent months. A Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official told reporters on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday that “regardless of the results of the U.S. presidential elections, we ascertain that we will firmly advance the Korea-U.S. alliance, which is based upon the shared values of democracy and a market economy.”
“As there is a chance that Trump may be elected, we will be on close watch through the elections in November,” another Korean government official said. “We are continuing our efforts to expand our network to those aiding Trump.”
Korean analysts generally do not believe that Trump’s stump promises will translate into policy if he is elected president in November. “Trump right now is approaching foreign policy and security purely from a businessman’s point of view,” Korea National Diplomatic Academy Chancellor Yun Duk-min told the JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday. “When he becomes the Republican nominee and picks advisers, he will unfold a new policy that will reflect the interests of the United States and put proper importance on the Korea-U.S. relationship.”
Source: Korea JoongAng Daily