South Korea tries to Trump-proof the alliance

US and South Korean delegations met in Hawaii on April 23 to begin talks about how much host nation support Seoul will pay toward the cost of operating US military bases in South Korea. Under a “special measures agreement” that is renewed every few years, Seoul helps pay for the land and electricity used by US bases, the salaries of Korean civilians who work on the bases and construction of new facilities.

The current agreement will not expire until the end of 2025, but the talks are beginning unusually early out of fear that Donald Trump might win a second term as US president in the November election. Both the US and Republic of Korea (ROK) governments want to lock in a new agreement before Trump could take office.

Negotiations prior to the current agreement were traumatic. They broke down in 2019 over the Trump Administration’s demand that the ROK’s annual payment increase from about $1 billion to $5 billion per year. That amount might have pushed Seoul to abrogate the alliance.

The Trump Administration left office with the issue unresolved. Under the incoming Biden Administration, the US and ROK agreed that Seoul’s payment would increase by a much smaller 13.9%, which was still the largest increase in almost two decades.

South Koreans such as Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, foresee “the likelihood of another crisis emerging within the Korea-US alliance” if Trump is re-elected.

Kim Won-soo, former under-secretary-general of the United Nation, says, “We need a Plan B” if Trump returns to power.

Or, as Asan Institute researcher Yang Uk puts it, South Korea needs “to contain the Trump risk.”

A Trump II Administration might “demand an increase in defense costs sharing or the