Inside Trump's standoff with South Korea over defence costs | Malay Mail

Trump's view that wealthy South Korea, which has an economy larger than Australia's, is taking advantage of the United States is increasingly being met in Seoul by a perception that Washington has become a transactional partner with unreasonable demands. ― Reuters pic

That offer and decision to reject it by the US president, the details of which have not been previously reported, leaves the United States and South Korea at an impasse, even as outbreaks of the coronavirus threaten to undermine US-South Korean military readiness for any potential conflict with North Korea.

“The current gridlock is there because they made excessive demands in the first place,” said one South Korean official with knowledge of the talks. Esper and Pompeo argued that South Korea was paying for no more than a third of the costs most directly associated with the stationing of US forces on the Korean Peninsula, not to mention other American military and intelligence assets associated with its defense.

The standoff raises a long unanswered question about what the United States might do, if anything, should South Korea fail to make an offer acceptable to Trump, who has made no secret of his displeasure at the cost of deploying troops overseas. When Seoul finally delivered its offer, it was underwhelming, according to multiple accounts of the conversations. Still, there was some hope that ― given the urgent US and South Korean focus on Covid-19 ― the deal might be good enough.

The official said there was concern that this could go well into summer and come closer to November's US presidential election, perhaps making Trump less amenable to lowering his demands.One of the most tangible results of the breakdown in the talks has been the roughly 4,000 South Korean workers on US bases furloughed as a result of the failure to reach a deal by an April 1 deadline. The United States says it needs the South Korean cost-sharing contributions to help pay their wages.

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