[News analysis] Trump risk affecting South Korea’s security and economy

Posted on : 2017-05-02 16:30 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
US president has gone off script in asking South Korea to pay for THAAD, and scrap KORUS FTA
US President Donald Trump waves to supporters at a rally in Harrisburg
US President Donald Trump waves to supporters at a rally in Harrisburg

With US President Donald Trump demanding that South Korea pay US$1 billion for the THAAD missile defense system and calling for the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) to be renegotiated or scrapped, the Trump risk is emerging as a major challenge for South Korea’s economy and its security. Experts believe that this will pose a considerable challenge for the next South Korean government.

Trump’s incendiary remarks about THAAD and the KORUS FTA began during an interview with Reuters on Apr. 27 and continued during an interview with the Washington Times the following day. Blue House National Security Chief Kim Kwan-jin and White House National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster attempted to rein in the situation by “reconfirming the current agreement” during a telephone discussion on the morning of Apr. 30. But the very next day, McMaster stirred up the controversy once again by making comments about the possibility of renegotiating the cost of THAAD.

This situation was confirmed to have begun with Trump making unscripted remarks that he had not run by his advisors. Until they were asked for confirmation by the South Korean government, officials at the US State Department, Pentagon and even the White House were reportedly unaware that the cost of THAAD had come up in the interview. “The material that advisors had prepared for Trump’s interview with Reuters apparently did not contain any mention of THAAD,” said one diplomatic source.

But Trump’s style made this controversy inevitable, and it only looks especially serious to South Koreans because they are Trump’s current target, many analysts believe.

First of all, Trump was elected on a populist platform that placed “America first.” He has a preternatural knack for homing in on the desires of his support base, which largely consists of working-class whites. Since Trump criticized US allies for being “free riders” on the US military during the presidential campaign and since he argues that free trade agreements are stealing American jobs, demanding that South Korea pay the cost of THAAD and undermining the KORUS FTA can be seen as ideal ways for Trump to placate his base.

Importantly, Trump has shown a tendency to highlight provocative issues when he has been backed into a political corner in order to distract voters‘ attention. This time the Trump administration had few achievements to boast of at the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office (on Apr. 29).

This is not the first time that Trump has impulsively upended diplomatic relations or apparently failed to take another country‘s position into consideration. While still the president-elect, Trump spoke on the phone with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, which appeared to be a rejection of the “One China” policy and provoked a harsh backlash from China. He launched airstrikes on Syria and Afghanistan with no warning. After his Apr. 6-7 summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump candidly discussed during an interview how Xi had been flustered by the airstrike on Syria.

There is also criticism inside the US about Trump’s unilateralism and his disrespect for American allies. US Senator Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, took to Twitter to urge Trump not to sow division among American allies amid heightening friction with North Korea. “Instead of the president’s damaging and disrespectful rhetoric towards South Korea, we need to reaffirm and strengthen our alliance with this key partner,” said a statement released by US Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat on the same committee’s subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific affairs.

But the crux of the problem is that it‘s not easy for Trump’s advisors to publicly rebut or reverse the spontaneous comments that Trump makes, no matter how inaccurate or inappropriate they may be, since that would undermine the president‘s authority and trust. “The last thing I would ever do is contradict the president of the United States,” McMaster said during an interview with the press, hinting at the pressure that these advisors are under. The essential nature of the Trump risk is that his impromptu remarks - which have been neither vetted nor refined - could reappear at any time and could even become policy.

“He could ask for South Korea to cover the cost of THAAD, or since there’s an agreement about THAAD he could take a different tack and ask it to cover the entire defense burden,” said one source in Washington. “The President of the United States will call on prosperous nations that the United States provides security for to do more in their own defense,” US Vice President Mike Pence said during an interview on the NBC program Meet the Press on Apr. 30. This implies that South Korea will not be exempted from the demand to pay a higher share of the defense cost.

Under the current “total payment” method of calculating the share of the defense burden, which assesses the US‘s overall contribution to defense on the Korean Peninsula, the US could in fact ask for a major increase of South Korea’s share of the defense burden by emphasizing the cost of deploying THAAD and other strategic weapons. In contrast with the “needs satisfaction” method used in Japan, which provides the US military with the cost needed for specific types of military support, South Korea does not control the specific areas in which its defense contribution is spent; in fact, it‘s not even told what those areas are. For this reason, South Korea’s defense share amounted to 950.7 billion won (US$837.3 million) this year, but next year it‘s believed that the amount could go much higher than 1 trillion won.

South Korea’s share of the cost of the joint military exercises with the US could increase substantially as well. The amount that Seoul pays for the exercises was made public one time in the early 2000s but not since then.

Another possibility is that the US could ask South Korea to buy more American weapons. From 2006 until Oct. 2016, South Korea bought 36.04 trillion won (US31.75 billion) of weaponry from the US. That’s a huge amount that comes close to South Korea’s entire defense budget (38 trillion won) last year. This helps explain projections that the Trump administration will ask South Korea for a major increase in its defense spending, which is currently 2.7% of GDP, compared to 4.3% in the US.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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