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US Forces Korea troops. (Hankyoreh archives)

The South Korean government rebutted an American newspaper report that the Pentagon had presented the White House with a contingency plan for reducing the US troop presence in South Korea back in March. “We have not received any official notification of the sort from the US,” Seoul said on July 19.

“The US has not give us any notification about American troops being pulled out of the country, nor are we holding any deliberations about [their withdrawal],” a spokesperson from South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) said on Sunday.

The US Defense Department said earlier that no decision had been made about adjusting the posture of US Forces Korea (USFK).

Seven months have now passed since South Korea and the US’ 11th Special Measures Agreement (SMA) was supposed to take effect, following the expiration of the previous agreement at the beginning of this year. That has led some to believe Washington seeks to use USFK as leverage.

“That kind of report isn’t made without a reason. The US appears to be trying to pressure South Korea so that it can gain an upper hand in the defense cost-sharing negotiations,” said an official in the South Korean military.

On July 17, the Wall Street Journal quoted a source in the American military as saying that “the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff has reviewed the structure of US forces in South Korea as part of a broader re-examination of how to reposition and potentially reduce military deployments worldwide.”

“By December, the Pentagon had come up with broad ideas, which also reflected its strategy for competing with China and Russia and its emphasis on rotational forces. In March, the Pentagon refined a number of options and presented them to the White House, including some for South Korea, the Wall Street Journal said, paraphrasing a US government official.

There has been continuing speculation in diplomatic circles in Washington that US President Donald Trump might raise the possibility of an American troop reduction in order to force South Korea to increase its contribution to mutual defense. During a briefing at the White House on Apr. 20, Trump said that South Korea needs to cover more of the cost of stationing American troops, with the caveat that “it’s not a question of reduction; it’s a question of will they contribute toward the defense of their own nation.”

Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of USFK and Combined Forces Command, said on July 1 that concerns about US forces being pulled out of South Korea were “baseless.” Abrams had been asked during the ROK-US Alliance Forum to address concerns that American troops might be withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula, considering that 9,500 American soldiers are being removed from Germany.

South Korea has reportedly proposed a five-year cost-sharing agreement in which it would raise its contribution by 13.6% in the first year and continue to increase it so that the contribution reaches US$1.3 billion (around 1.56 trillion won) in the fifth year. But Trump countered by asking South Korea to pay US$1.3 starting this year. US$1.3 billion would be close to a 50% increase from South Korea’s 2019 contribution (1.04 trillion won, or US$864.1 million).

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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