hankyoreh

Donald Trump

Dear Donald Trump,

I’m not especially interested in your status as a one of the top Republican Party contenders for next year’s US presidential election. I haven’t been concerned about all of your bizarre behavior and the outlandish things you say. I don’t have the right to vote in US elections.

The reason I’m writing this letter is because you have a tendency to tell bald-faced lies. Right now, you’re painting South Korea as a “free rider” on security, claiming that we are drawing all the benefits of US security without paying anything. The first time I heard this from you, I laughed and thought, ‘Ignorance sure makes people do brave things.’ So different were the things you said from reality that I thought it wasn‘t worth responding to.

Yet you’ve been making the same “free ride” claims repeatedly throughout the Republican primary. In a book released last month, you talked about the 28,000 US soldiers stationed in South Korea, who are “in harm’s way every single day,” and how they are supposedly the “only thing” protecting the South. You even used the word “peanuts” to describe the 920 billion won (US$788 million) a year that South Korea pays as a defense contribution to station those US troops.

People who are up on the situation in the US right now tell me that your statements reflect views held by many middle-class white people there, and that these are not some kind of off-the-cuff personal remarks.

To begin with, I want to express just how infuriating and insulting it is to hear you claim that it is only the 28,000 US soldiers who are defending South Korea. Twenty-three years ago, I was discharged from the South Korean army as a sergeant. There are 630,000 South Korean troops guarding the country at this very moment.

What you said about South Korean not paying for its defense was true - up until 1990. The US did bear all costs for stationing USFK during that time. But when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, the US began demanding that we pay for USFK’s stationing, citing South Korea‘s economic growth and its own struggles with a twin trade and fiscal deficit.

South Korea has been paying its contribution to USFK defense costs since 1991. Since 2014, it has been paying 920 billion won a year. Its share of defense costs rose from around 100 billion won (US$85.7 million) in 1991 to 920 billion won in 2014, an increase of over nine times.

As a share of gross domestic product (GDP), South Korea’s defense contributions are not small, especially when you look at what two other countries with a US troop presence - Germany and Japan - paid in 2013. South Korea‘s contribution comes out to around 0.068% of GDP. That’s slightly more than Japan’s 0.064%, and a good deal more than Germany’s 0.016%. It should also be noted that both those countries have larger troop presences than USFK: 36,700 for Japan and 50,500 for Germany.

Beyond the defense contributions, there are also several forms of direct and indirect support we provide to USFK, including appraised values on real estate rentals, tax exemptions, discounts on public fees, and exemptions on infrastructure usage costs. A look at parliamentary audit data from the South Korean National Assembly shows that yearly direct and indirect support to USFK amounts to roughly double the defense contribution paid over the same period.

The reason this support is greater has to do with how expensive South Korean land is. According to figures from our Ministry of National Defense, USFK was using 107,962,720 square-meters of land in South Korea for free as of 2011. The total value of that land, in terms of individually assessed prices, comes out to 12.11 trillion won (US$10.4 billion). The equivalent rental fee on it would be 569.3 billion won (US$487.7 million). Add all that money together, and South Korea is offering as much as three trillion won a year in support to USFK.

Does that still look “peanuts” to you, Mr. Trump?

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter

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