(LEAD) (News Focus) New S. Korea-U.S. defense cost deal adds stability to alliance, but Trump question lingers: experts

(ATTN: ADDS more expert remarks in paras 15-17)
By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (Yonhap) -- This week's conclusion of negotiations over a new defense cost-sharing deal between South Korea and the United States will give stability to their alliance, but uncertainty lingers over whether the deal can endure should former President Donald Trump return to office, experts said Friday.

Seoul and Washington struck the five-year deal, called the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), on Wednesday (Korea time) following eight rounds of negotiations over the last five months, Seoul's foreign ministry said. The conclusion came a little over a month before the U.S. presidential election.

Under the 12th SMA to last until 2030, Seoul will pay 1.52 trillion won (US$1.14 billion) in 2026, up from 1.4 trillion won in 2025, for the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). The deal links an annual increase in Seoul's SMA contributions to the Consumer Price Index -- in a shift from the existing deal tying the increase to an annual rise in Seoul's defense budget.

"Early renewal of the special measures agreement brings stability to the alliance, preempting what can be a domestically sensitive issue inside each country regarding burden sharing," Patrick Cronin, the chair for Asia-Pacific Security at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, said.

"However, there is no way to Trump-proof the alliance from political disruption. If the former president wins the November election, he would likely seek to renegotiate the terms of this deal," he added.

The allies launched negotiations in April -- earlier than usual -- amid concerns that should Trump return to the Oval Office, he could drive a hard bargain in a way that could cause tension in the bilateral alliance amid growing North Korean military threats.

The last stretch of the SMA negotiations proceeded as various polls have shown Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump caught in a tight race, making it difficult to predict who will win the White House in the Nov. 5 general election.

During his presidency marked by his America first policy approach, Trump was known to have called for a hefty rise in South Korea's financial contributions for the upkeep of USFK, leading to a prolonged impasse in SMA talks that at some point, led Korean USFK personnel to even face furloughs.

In a memoir published in 2020, former National Security Advisor John Bolton said that Trump threatened to pull American troops from South Korea if Seoul did not pay $5 billion under a new SMA -- an approximately five-fold increase in Seoul's payments for USFK presence.

Trump's hard bargaining at that time was much anticipated as he had described South Korea as a "free rider" on America's military power under what was viewed as his "transactional" approach toward U.S. alliances.

During this year's campaign remarks, the Republican standard-bearer asserted the need for U.S. allies to increase their defense spending.

During an interview with TIME, an American news magazine, in April, Trump described South Korea as a "very wealthy" country and suggested that the U.S. could pull out its troops from South Korea if Seoul does not make more financial contributions to support them.

In another campaign speech in August, Trump called on member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to spend at least 3 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, calling the current 2 percent guideline "the steal of the century" -- remarks that suggested his thinking that allies should contribute more.

In line with his stance, Robert O'Brien, who served as national security advisor for Trump from 2019-2021, stressed the need for Seoul to increase its defense spending to 3 percent or 3.5 percent of its GDP when he appeared at a forum last month.

Frank Aum, a senior expert on Northeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace, expected that the early completion of SMA negotiations will not "inoculate" South Korea if Trump is reelected.

"Trump can withdraw from the SMA agreement as he has done with previous agreements such as the Open Skies Treaty, the Paris Climate Agreement, and the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty," he told Yonhap News Agency via email.

"He can also ask South Korea to pay more for other U.S. contributions, including for military exercises and U.S. asset deployments to the Korean Peninsula."

Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corp., put the possibility of Trump seeking a SMA renegotiation if reelected at 50 to 60 percent.

"I think it will depend upon who he chooses as his secretary of defense, national security advisor and secretary of state who will be advising him on issues that he needs to pay attention to," he said,

"Given that it has been negotiated already, it is unlikely he's going to spend much attention on it unless this is just really a hot-button issue for him. We don't know that for sure."

Bennett expects that the conclusion of the SMA negotiations would help bring more stability to the alliance.

"I think it has a strong probability of raising greater stability. If Harris is elected president, I think she's likely to let it just stand and be what they go with," he said.

"Even if Trump is elected, there's some chance that he's just not going to bother to fool with that given all the other issues that he's going to have to take on."

The scholar noted that the total estimated costs for USFK personnel's training, equipment, salaries and benefits as well as expenditures for daily operations in South Korea are likely to exceed $10 billion per year, and that South Korea covers a portion of those expenses in addition to providing the land and other resources for U.S. military presence.

"Because the U.S. presence has value for both Korea and the United States -- and not just for Korea, the current arrangement is entirely reasonable," he said.

"For example, U.S. forces located in the ROK play a major role in deterring not only North Korea but also China and Russia. If those personnel were back in the U.S., they would make a much smaller contribution to regional deterrence, which is extremely important to the U.S. from both a security and economic perspective," he added. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

In South Korea, the new SMA deal requires parliamentary approval though the U.S. does not need such a legislative procedure.

A new U.S. president, who takes office in January next year, would have some time for renegotiation as the current SMA is valid until the end of next year, some observers said, though a reversal of a deal from government-to-government negotiations would have diplomatic repercussions.

Since 1991, Seoul has partially shouldered costs under the SMA for Korean USFK workers, the construction of military facilities and other logistical support.

sshluck@yna.co.kr
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