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On May 3, the New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump had ordered the Pentagon to prepare measures to reduce American troops in South Korea, citing multiple sources. Considering that South Korea and the US are currently negotiating the cost sharing agreement for those troops’ deployment and that a North Korea-US summit is approaching, this report, if true, is expected to have major ramifications. The Blue House immediately denied the report, saying that it was “not true at all.”

While American officials declined to comment on whether the options that Trump is seeking represent a partial or full reduction, the New York Times reported that a full reduction was not likely. The officials emphasized that a review of the scale and deployment of US Forces Korea was needed already, regardless of the diplomatic situation with North Korea, suggesting that a consensus has formed inside the administration about reducing the troop presence to some extent.

Trump said that withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea is “not on the table.” the AP reported.

“Now I have to tell you, at some point into the future, I would like to save the money,” Trump said later as he prepared to board Air Force One. “You know we have 32,000 troops there but I think a lot of great things will happen but troops are not on the table. Absolutely.”

In the newspaper’s analysis, Trump’s orders to prepare drawdown measures are primarily related to the negotiations about defense cost sharing. Since his presidential campaign, Trump has pointed out that US Forces Korea have failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear threat for decades and argued that the US was not being adequately compensated for the cost of stationing troops in South Korea, which are mainly there to defend Japan, Trump said.

The New York Times reported that Trump’s “latest push coincides with tense negotiations with South Korea over how to share the cost of the military force. [. . .] The Trump administration is demanding that it [South Korea] pay for virtually the entire cost of the military presence.” South Korea officially covers about half the cost of the troops’ upkeep and is discussing a new agreement with the US that will take effect next year. During the negotiations last month, the US also asked South Korea to pay the cost of strategic weapons that are deployed to the Korean Peninsula.

If Trump has actually given an order to consider a drawdown, this is likely to be reinterpreted amid the reshaping of the strategic landscape of the Korean Peninsula – including the inter-Korean summit, the North Korea-US summit and peace talks to come – and to lead to a debate about the existence and purpose of US Forces Korea and the appropriateness of the size of the deployment. While American officials told the New York Times that this was not intended to be a bargaining chip for Trump during his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, they acknowledged that a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula could reduce the need to station 28,500 US troops on the peninsula.

When US Secretary of Defense James Mattis was asked by reporters on Apr. 27 whether it would be necessary to keep American troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula if a peace treaty is signed, he said, “That’s part of the issues that we’ll be discussing in negotiations with our allies first, and of course with North Korea.”

“A senior official at the White House National Security Council said that the New York Times report was not true at all,” said Blue House Senior Secretary for Public Relations Yoon Young-chan. “This is what we were told by Blue House National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong, who is visiting the US, after he spoke on the phone with a senior official at the White House.”

President Trump poses for a photo with Gen. Vincent K. Brooks