The Pentagon has presented the White House with options to reduce the US military presence in South Korea, as the two countries continue to disagree with President Trump’s demand that Seoul greatly increase what it pays for US troops stationed in the country, US officials said.
The Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff has revised the structure of US forces in South Korea as part of a broader review of how to reposition and potentially reduce military deployments worldwide, a US military official said.
Trump administration officials declined to detail contingency plans to reduce the US military presence in South Korea to below the current level of 28,500 US troops, and said no decision has been made to reduce the force.
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The revelation comes as Trump has baffled his allies by deciding to eliminate 9,500 of the 34,500 U.S. troops stationed permanently in Germany and as one of the president’s most direct advisers has pointed out that more troop withdrawals could occur.
“Donald Trump was very clear,” said Richard Grenell, the former US ambassador to Germany who lobbied for the German newspaper Bild over the withdrawal of troops there.
“We want to bring troops from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, Japan, and Germany,” he said. Americans “are getting a little tired of paying too much for the defense of other countries,” Grenell added in comments that reverberated in Seoul.
The United States and South Korea have been military allies since the Korean War. In 1991, the two countries concluded the first in a series of agreements under which Seoul provides funds and other support to defray the cost of keeping troops there.
However, Trump has always insisted that South Korea pay more.
This story continues in The Wall Street Journal.
