Interviewed by Time magazine’s Eric Cortellessa on April 27 for a cover story entitled “How far Trump would go,” Donald Trump was asked, “Would you withdraw troops from South Korea?”
Without giving a yes or no answer, and citing incorrect figures, he repeated his previous arguments. His reply appeared to indicate that, if elected, he would resume his first-term negotiating stance of holding the threat of withdrawal over Seoul’s head in order to extract higher payments.
According to Time’s transcript of the interview, the former president and current presidential contender replied in these words:
Well, I want South Korea to treat us properly. As you know, I got them to – I had negotiations, because they were paying virtually nothing for 40,000 troops that we had there. We have 40,000 troops, and in a somewhat precarious position to put it mildly, because right next door happens to be a man I got along with very well, but a man who, nevertheless, he’s got visions of things.
That man “next door” would be North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. There was reason during Trump’s White House term to think that the president would acquiesce to Kim’s call for troop withdrawal, hoping for a deal formally ending the Korean War.
Trump in that portion of the Time interview had his figures wrong. Time’s fact-checkers note that “the actual number” of the troops is not 40,000 but 28,500.
According to the transcript, Trump added:
And I told South Korea that it’s time that you step up and pay. They’ve become a very wealthy country. We’ve essentially paid for much of their military, free of charge. And they agreed to pay billions of dollars. And now probably now that I’m gone, they’re paying very little. I don’t know if you know that they renegotiated the deal I made. And they’re paying very little. But they paid us billions, many billions of dollars, for us having troops there. From what I’m hearing, they were able to renegotiate with the Biden administration and bring that number way, way down to what it was before, which was almost nothing.
Trump’s figures here were wrong again – as was what he was “hearing” had happened during the Biden administration.
Time’s fact-checkers note: “During his presidency, Trump demanded that South Korea increase its contributions to host US troops in the country. In early 2019, the country’s contribution increased by more than 10%, from $830 million annually to $924 million. Trump had requested the country pay as much as $5 billion dollars—a 500% increase and a “non-starter” for South Korea, as Reuters reported at the time. In 2021, the two countries agreed that South Korea would pay $1 billion that year—a 13.9% increase from its annual payments in 2019 and 2020, with costs increasing by 6.1 percent per year until 2025. The US and South Korea are currently re-negotiating a new cost-sharing agreement to begin in 2026.”
Trump continued:
Which doesn’t make any sense, Eric. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country. But they’re a very wealthy country and why wouldn’t they want to pay? They were actually, they were a pleasure to deal with. Not easy initially, but ultimately, they became a pleasure to deal with. And they agreed to pay billions [of] dollars to the United States for our military being there. Billions, many billions.
Daniel Sneider, a Stanford lecturer in East Asian Studies, via email takes issue with “Trump’s account of the host nation support negotiations with South Korea, which took place toward the end of his term,” calling what Trump said “a deliberate lie.” Sneider adds:
According to Mark Esper, who served as his defense secretary at that time, and backed up by former Trump administration defense officials, Trump wanted to demand a five-fold increase in Korean support payments for US forces.
Esper, as he recounted in his memoirs, proposed instead to increase Korean payments from 30 percent of the cost of stationing US forces to 50 percent. After a year of talks, the South Korean administration agreed – “only to have President Trump undermine his own negotiators and reject it at the eleventh hour.”
The Biden administration moved quickly to negotiate the support agreement along reasonable terms, assuring that the security alliance wouldn’t be threatened.
The Korea portion of the interview, brief as it was, made headlines in South Korea. “Some of Trump’s former advisers have commented that he mentioned withdrawing from South Korea behind closed doors,” noted a Washington dispatch published May 1 by the Seoul daily Hankyoreh.
“Based on Trump’s comments in the interview, if he is reelected this November, it is probable that he will use the threat of pulling US troops out of Korea as leverage in a new round of negotiations designed to further increase South Korea’s contribution to defense costs.”
Trump in the Time interview repeated his threat to NATO members that he accuses of not carrying their weight financially. He was asked: “Sir, you have said that you’re willing to let Russia ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to NATO countries that don’t spend enough on their defense. If Putin attacked a NATO state that you believe was not spending enough on their defense, would the US come to that country’s assistance?”
Trump’s reply:
Yeah, when I said that, I said it with great meaning, because I want them to pay. I want them to pay up. That was said as a point of negotiation. I said, Look, if you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own. And I mean that. And the question was asked to me: If we don’t pay? It was asked to me long before this event. Do you know that, after I said that, do you know that billions of dollars poured into NATO? Do you know that?
The questioner persisted and after further discussion Trump elaborated:
Look, that’s the way you talk as a negotiator. I’m negotiating because I want them to pay. I want Europe to pay. I want nothing bad to happen to Europe, I love Europe, I love the people of Europe, I have a great relationship with Europe. But they’ve taken advantage of us, both on NATO and on Ukraine.
The author of The Art of the Deal didn’t say the NATO threat had been only a negotiating stance. But even if it was, that does not appear always to have been the case with Trump’s Korea troops withdrawal threat. As was President Jimmy Carter before him, there’s evidence that Trump was serious in thinking withdrawal a good idea. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedlly talked him out of it once, but Kelly didn’t last much longer in the job.
Sneider’s analysis is that Trump is still serious about troop withdrawal. “Now Trump is telling us, via Time Magazine, that he is ready, if not eager, to go back to where he left off,” Sneider says. “But it is important to understand that this is not simply a bid to extract more money from Korea, though Trump undoubtedly thinks that is a key goal.
“Rather” Sneider says, “this demand is a clear pathway to the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea. His Time interview essentially argues that the American military presence in Korea is not needed, and he signals his intention to resume a courtship of North Korea’s dicatator Kim Jong Un.”
Sneider says that, here again, it is “useful to listen to what his former defense secretary [Esper], who strongly opposes Trump’s return to office,” wrote in his memoirs:
North Korea was an immediate problem for the United States, Japan and South Korea, but to me how our three nations worked together to deal with China in the coming years was the bigger issue. Our bases in both countries were great locations to position American forces as we looked ahead. For these reasons, I became very uneasy when Trump talked bout the need to pull all US forces completely out of Korea.
I was able to make my best case against such moves by reminding him that I had a global posture review under way — which I did — but that only bought me time. [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo jumped in once to help, saying “Mr President, you should make that [withdrawing US forces from Korea] a second-term priority.” This placated him. Trump responded with “Yeah, yeah, second term,” as a Cheshire Cat smile came across his face. I knew, however, it was something I couldn’t implement.
The official line is that the US spends hundreds of billions to support a worldwide system of bases and alliances because it loves freedom so much it is willing to go broke defending others against evil powers like China, Russia, NK, and Iran.
Esper, however, told us what we already know. US forces in South Korea have nothing to do with defending SK, and everything to do with threatening China.
United States troops are in South Korea to protect American interests. In 2023 foreign investors owned 32.4 percent of benchmark stocks and 9.4 percent of listed bonds. U.S. investor interest was 40.4 percent of the total.