US military part of tariff talks - Trump includes costs of US troops in negotiations with Asian allies
Tens of thousands of US troops stationed in South Korea and Japan appear set to be part of President Donald Trump's tariff negotiations, despite efforts by Asian countries to separate security talks from trade.
In posts on the Truth Social platform, Trump said that sharing defense costs would be part of negotiations with Seoul and raised the defense issue during a visit by Japanese officials to Washington this week. Japan hosts about 50,000 U.S. troops and South Korea 28,500. Both countries rely on the U.S. nuclear shield for defense against China, Russia and North Korea.
Trump has previously suggested he could pull out US forces if countries do not pay and during his first term, demanded billions of dollars more. Official South Korean sources said Washington had not formally proposed renegotiating their Special Measures Agreement (SMA), under which the country supports US troops stationed there, but Seoul is preparing for different scenarios.
The reopening of defense talks is a "deliberate pressure tactic" by Trump, analysts explain. " He has made it clear that he views the alliance relationship as transactional and is determined to extract an economic benefit commensurate with the value of American defense ," they add.
Shortly before last year’s US election, South Korea and the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden rushed to sign a new five-year agreement under which Seoul would increase its contribution to maintaining US troops in the country by 8.3%, to $1.47 billion in the first year. There would then be subsequent increases linked to the consumer price index.
Key allies
Korean officials said it was Biden's team that pushed for the early negotiations and that this sparked a debate within the South Korean government, which ultimately decided it risked antagonizing Washington by rejecting the pact. " Now, if we have to negotiate, we are doing it at a higher amount than we would have expected ," they added.
Japan has the largest deployment of US troops abroad globally. According to an agreement negotiated in 2022 and expiring in March 2027, the average annual cost Japan spends on maintaining US troops amounts to about $1.48 billion.
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