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Washington and Seoul agree on defense spending sharing plan

2024-10-05 09:45:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Washington and Seoul agree on defense spending sharing plan

The United States and South Korea have agreed on a five-year plan to share the cost of keeping American troops in South Korea, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul and the US State Department said.

For 2026, the states have agreed to increase defense spending by 8.3 percent to $1.1 billion, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Seoul and Washington earlier started talks on the issue, in what was seen as an attempt to reach an agreement on the plan before the US presidential elections are held in November.

South Korea and the US reached agreement on the new spending plan after eight rounds of talks that began in April, as the existing agreement was set to expire next year.

About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea as part of efforts to contain nuclear-armed North Korea. South Korea began cost-sharing US deployments, funds used to finance local employment, construction of military installations and other logistical support, in the early 1990s.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the November elections, when he was president of the USA, had accused the ally, South Korea, of not paying for American defense, demanding that it pay 5 billion euros a year for American deployments .

During the Trump administration, there was no progress in this direction. But his successor, Joe Biden, reached an agreement and Seoul agreed to increase the contribution to 13.9 percent./ Rel 





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