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James DeHart, the chief US negotiator in its defense cost-sharing talks with South Korea, holds a press conference at the American Center Korea in Seoul on Dec. 18. (photo pool)

This year’s last round of negotiations over South Korea and the US’ defense cost-sharing arrangement, which is supposed to take effect next year, ended without an agreement. The failure of the meeting, held in Seoul on Dec. 18, pushes the negotiations over the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) into next year.

Following the meeting on Wednesday, the US chief negotiator in the cost-sharing talks, James DeHart, held a press conference with South Korean reporters. While hinting that the US no longer insists on a US$5 billion price tag, as it had initially, he still argued that South Korea needs to pay more toward stationing American troops in the country.

While meeting with South Korean reporters at the public relations office of the American embassy to Seoul on Wednesday, DeHart said that the “big figures that have been repeated many times in the Korean media [. . .] do not reflect where we are in our discussions with the ROK [South Korea] today. We have listened [to South Korea] in these negotiations [. . .] we have adjusted and we have compromised as well.”

DeHart didn’t disclose the latest figure requested by the US. “When we reach the agreement, the figure will be different from our initial proposal and probably different from what we’ve heard from the Korean side so far,” he said, suggesting that the US would lower its original demand, but that South Korea also needs to increase its current bid.

Civic groups gather in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square on Dec. 17 protest the US’ demands for increasing South Korea’s financial contribution to stationing US troops in Korea. (Yonhap News)

“We have that larger set of costs that are not captured within the current SMA,” DeHart said, while repeatedly arguing that a new category of “readiness” should be added to the SMA framework to ensure that South Korea is covering the costs cited by the US. Those costs, DeHart said, include “all of rotations of our military personnel to the peninsula and those temporary deployments, all of those personnel that have to be trained appropriately, they have to be equipped appropriately, they have to be transported here and back constantly. This is all about maintaining an extremely high status of readiness for the readiness of the ROK.”

DeHart also mentioned “the military capabilities we provide because the ROK has not yet developed these capabilities itself,” noting that “some of these are very expensive capabilities.” He added that “the SMA has been updated many times in the past” while expressing the hope that the updated agreement would more accurately reflect what the US pays for South Korea’s defense.

There’s tension in the ongoing negotiations between the US, which seeks to change the rules of the game, and South Korea, which hopes to keep those rules in place. South Korea is apparently pushing to maintain the framework of the agreement, under which it covers labor costs, logistics costs, and construction costs, while persuading the US to exclude costs that don’t fit into that framework.

In response to US President Donald Trump’s criticism of rich allies who get a “free ride,” South Korea has reportedly stressed that, in addition to its cost-sharing contribution, it purchases high-dollar weapons from the US and provides support, both directly and indirectly, including loans of large tracts of land and facilities and tax breaks. In addition, South Korea has played up the fact that it allowed the US to return four American bases while taking on the initial responsibility for decontaminating those sites and that it’s considering an American request to deploy forces to the Strait of Hormuz at the request of the US, though those issues aren’t directly linked to the negotiations.

While DeHart said that South Korea’s assumption of the decontamination cost and its consideration of deployment were “positive,” he pointed out that they weren’t “a topic of discussion in our talks.” DeHart acknowledged that South Korea purchases “a significant level of American weapons systems,” which he described as “an important consideration for us in the burden-sharing context” but just “one factor among many that we are considering.”

When asked if a breakdown in the negotiations could lead to trade-related penalties or the withdrawal of American troops, DeHart said, “Neither of those things are in any instructions that have been given to me, and neither of] those things have we really discussed in the negotiations.” While the validity period of the current SMA was shortened to one year at the US’ request, DeHart said the two sides would return to a longer validity period in these negotiations.

Next meeting to be held in Washington next month

In November, DeHart cut short the third round of negotiations and held a press conference in which he slammed South Korea for failing to meet American demands. DeHart has been carrying on a public relations campaign, meeting with politicians in addition to holding these two atypical press conferences. These tactics appear aimed at boosting South Korea’s share of defense, as Trump has requested, while also easing public opposition to an extreme cost increase and paving the way for ratification by the National Assembly.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the next meeting would be held in the US in January 2020. “Despite disagreements about several issues, we’re broadening our mutual understanding through wide-ranging discussion,” the ministry said.

By Park Min-hee, staff writer

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