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Wednesday, March 10, 2021, 18:04
ROK agrees to 13.9% increase in its share of cost for US troops
By Reuters
Wednesday, March 10, 2021, 18:04 By Reuters

In a handout photo taken and released on Dec 29, 2020 by US Forces Korea, service members of the United States Forces Korea prepare to receive the first round of the Moderna vaccine at Osan Air Base, south of Seoul. (HADNOUT / US FORCES KOREA / AFP)

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea (ROK) has agreed to a 13. percent increase in its contribution to the cost of hosting some 28,500 US troops for 2021, the biggest annual rise in nearly two decades after US calls for greater funding.

The increase will take the ROK’s contribution this year to 1.18 trillion won (US$1.03 billion). Former US president Donald Trump had accused the ROK of “free-riding” on US military might and demanded that it pay as much as US$5 billion a year.

“The agreement resolved the longest-ever vacuum that had lasted about a year and three months,” the ROK’s chief negotiator, Jeong Eun-bo, told a televised briefing.

On the new link between the contribution to the cost of maintaining US forces and the defence budget, the ROK's foreign ministry said the increase in the defence budget was a “reasonable, verifiable indicator” that reflected financial and security capabilities

“It provided a chance to reaffirm the importance of the alliance and the need for stable stationing of US Forces Korea.”

The six-year Special Measures Agreement with the United States came after drawn-out negotiations and will boost the ROK’s annual contribution to the bill for 2022 to 2025 in line with its annual defence budget increase, which was 5.4 percent this year, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

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The pact replaces an arrangement that expired at the end of 2019, under which the ROK paid about US$920 million a year. Both sides agreed to freeze the ROK’s contribution for 2020, the ministry said.

In the last big increase in its contribution, the ROK in 2003 paid 17 percent more than the previous year, according to data from a defence ministry white paper.

On the new link between the contribution to the cost of maintaining US forces and the defence budget, the ministry said the increase in the defence budget was a “reasonable, verifiable indicator” that reflected financial and security capabilities.

But Shin Beom-chul, a security expert at the Research Institute for Economy and Society in Seoul, said aligning the two issues was a “mistake” for the ROK, one of the world’s largest defence spenders, and it could bring budget pressure.

About 28,500 US troops are stationed in the ROK to help defend it against Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) under a treaty of mutual defence signed after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The treaty provided the basis for the stationing of US forces in the ROK, which began paying towards their costs in the early 1990s after rebuilding its war-devastated economy.

With negotiations making little headway after the last pact expired, about half of some 9,000 people from the ROK working for the US military were placed on unpaid leave, prompting the two sides to scramble for a stopgap deal to bring them back to work.

Jeong said the accord stipulated that in future, workers can be get their existing salaries in the absence of a new deal.

READ MORE: S. Korea, US hold talks on cost-sharing for US Forces Korea

The workers’ union welcomed the agreement, saying it would help ensure stable work conditions. Without it, thousands more workers would have been forced to take unpaid leave next month, the union said.

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