Consultants say a clause on “complete assist” for US Forces Korea within the lately launched truth sheet on safety agreements between the US and Korea could possibly be trigger for concern
President Lee Jae Myung broadcasts the adoption of a truth sheet on agreements with the US from the press room of the presidential workplace in Seoul’s Yongsan District on Nov. 14, 2025. (Yonhap)
The joint truth sheet launched by South Korea and the US incorporates quite a few large safety calls for from the US, illustrative of what it means to be in a transactional alliance with the US within the Trump period.
A main instance is the US$33 billion in “complete assist” for US Forces Korea that Seoul pledged to Washington. The clause raises questions on whether or not Korea has successfully sidestepped the prevailing protection cost-sharing settlement and acquiesced to Trump’s calls for that shoulder a bigger share of the protection burden, together with strategic weapon deployment bills.
The actual fact sheet, printed Friday, states below the “modernizing the US-ROK alliance” heading that Korea “dedicated to spending US$25 billion on US army tools purchases by 2030, and shared its plan to supply complete assist for US Forces Korea amounting to US$33 billion in accordance with ROK authorized necessities.”
ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the formal identify of South Korea.
A bilateral settlement states that Korea’s assist for US troops stationed within the nation is restricted to personnel, army building and logistics assist prices. In line with the twelfth Particular Measures Settlement (SMA) agreed upon by the US and Korea in October 2024, Seoul’s contribution towards the fee stationing of US troops within the nation was set at US$1 billion for 2026 — nowhere close to the US$33 billion complete assist bundle that the 2 sides simply introduced.
“We took into consideration the SMA and its potential extension to gauge the quantity that could possibly be offered to the USFK over the following 10 years. This contains direct and oblique prices for the USFK, land and different elements,” Wi Sung-lac, Korea’s nationwide safety adviser, emphasised. “It’s not one thing utterly remarkable and new.”
Nonetheless, specialists have been fast to level out that the very fact sheet fails to explicitly state a 10-year interval for this pledge of complete assist to the USFK.
The actual fact sheet signifies that Korea is dedicated to creating the purchases “by 2030,” main many to consider that the great assist for USFK might be rendered over the following 5 years. If that’s the case, Korea might be anticipated to supply round US$6.6 billion a 12 months — greater than six instances the protection prices it’s at present shouldering.
Even when we take the federal government at its phrase, a payout interval of 10 years would nonetheless imply Korea is spending US$3.3 billion yearly, or 3 times the quantity it’s paying for protection prices at current.
Wi said that the prices included oblique prices such because the land use charges and electrical energy invoice reductions for US troops within the nation, however diplomats with expertise negotiating with the US level out that the US has by no means formally acknowledged or accounted for such oblique assist.
“The ambiguously phrased ‘complete assist’ is a poisonous clause that might imply South Korea must heed Trump’s calls for of bearing the prices of South Korea-US army workout routines and strategic weapons deployment,” commented a former high-ranking diplomatic official who wished to stay nameless.
Kim Jung-sup, a principal fellow on the Sejong Institute, assessed, “We should study whether or not the federal government has gone past the framework of the prevailing protection burden-sharing settlement to successfully settle for US calls for for a considerable enhance in protection prices.”
By Park Min-hee, senior workers author
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