U.S. pushes Seoul on defense costs

[Anchor]

It appears that the U.S. government's strategy to change the scale and role of the U.S. Forces Korea will become a key issue during the upcoming South Korea-U.S. summit.

Reports from U.S. media indicate that, during last month’s tariff negotiations, the U.S. attempted to pressure South Korea to increase its defense spending and its share of the costs for maintaining U.S. Forces Korea.

Kim Ji-sook reports from Washington.

[Report]

According to an early draft of the South Korea-U.S. tariff agreement obtained by the Washington Post, the U.S. wanted South Korea to increase its defense spending from 2.6% of GDP last year to 3.8%.

This is nearly a 50% increase, effectively requesting South Korea to allocate nearly 100 trillion won to its defense budget for one year.

Additionally, the U.S. proposed a plan to double the defense cost-sharing burden that South Korea currently pays for U.S. Forces Korea, by increasing the amount by more than 1 billion dollars.

This reflects President Trump's fundamental stance on the issue.

[Donald Trump/President of the United States/Last month: "South Korea is making a lot of money and they're very good, but you know, they should be paying for their own military."]

In particular, the document also includes a request for the South Korean government to support the 'strategic flexibility' of U.S. Forces Korea.

This means expanding the role and operational scope of U.S. Forces Korea to counter China.

Such elements summarize the demands that the U.S. is expected to make to South Korea in upcoming negotiations.

However, it has not been confirmed whether the U.S. made these demands during the actual negotiation process.

The publicly released agreement only included economic matters.

A source from the negotiation team stated that, with the deadline approaching, the U.S. was also in a hurry to secure results, and no security issues were raised by the Department of Commerce.

Given the contents of the draft document, it is analyzed that the U.S. intentions have been clearly identified, making it highly likely that security issues will be addressed as a core agenda in the upcoming South Korea-U.S. summit.

This is Kim Ji-sook reporting for KBS News from Washington.