Trump emphasizes summit diplomacy with North Korea… Pressure on Korea to increase defense cost sharing
President-elect Donald Trump, who was elected as the 47th President of the United States, is expected to respond to the North Korean nuclear threat and normalize relations through direct negotiations with Chairman Kim Jong-un. It is expected that Korea will be pressured to increase its financial contribution to security cooperation. Reporter Cho Eun-jung looked at President-elect Trump’s remarks and perceptions regarding the Korean Peninsula.
President-elect Donald Trump, who returned to power, became the first sitting U.S. president to hold a summit meeting with a North Korean leader during his first term.
President-elect Trump, who met North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un three times at the time, mentioned diplomacy with North Korea as a major achievement during the 47th presidential election campaign and repeatedly hinted at the possibility of pursuing normal diplomacy with North Korea again.
“I will get along well with Kim Jong-un.”
In his presidential candidacy acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July, President-elect Trump said, “I got along very well with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un,” and asked, “Isn’t it a good thing to get along with someone who has a lot of nuclear weapons?”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is giving an acceptance speech as the U.S. Republican presidential candidate on the last day of the Fiserv Forum Republican National Convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 18.
[녹취: 트럼프 당선인] “I got along very well, North Korea, Kim Jong Un. I got along very well with him. The press hated when I said that. How could you get along with him? Well, you know, it’s nice to get along with someone that has a lot of nuclear weapons or otherwise, isn’t it?”
He then criticized, saying, “By getting along well with them, we prevented North Korea from launching missiles,” and added, “Now North Korea is acting again.”
This remark was interpreted as pointing out the situation in which dialogue with North Korea has been cut off since the inauguration of the Biden administration and North Korea is increasing the intensity of its provocations.
President-elect Trump said, “But when we go back (to the White House), I will get along well with him,” and “I think he will want to see me back, and I think he misses me.”
President-elect Trump repeatedly emphasized during the campaign that he could handle enemy leaders well.
“There is no problem whether it is Kim Jong-un or China.”
Last August, he appeared on a live broadcast hosted by game broadcaster Adin Ross and said that the United States has enemies both inside and outside and that “Kim Jong-un will probably be considered an enemy,” but “as long as there is a smart president, there is no problem whether it is Kim Jong-un or China.” He said.
President-elect Trump said of Kim Jong-un, “He is very smart, strong and an absolute leader.”
In June 2019, then-U.S. President Donald Trump met and shook hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom, the border between South Korea and North Korea.
[녹취: 트럼프 당선인] “He’s very smart he’s very strong. He’s the absolute leader. You know a lot of people say, ‘oh, maybe he’s not the leader.’ He’s the absolute. When he’s around, his people are standing up at attention.”
“Many people say he is not a leader, but he is absolute,” he said. “When he is around, his people stand and salute.”
James Carafano, a senior advisor at the Heritage Foundation who led the foreign policy division in Trump’s first transition team, recently told VOA that President-elect Trump will want to push again for the denuclearization of North Korea and the normalization of relations with North Korea.
James Carafano Heritage Foundation Senior Advisor
[녹취:카라파노 선임고문] “I think President Trump would like to get back to denuclearization and normalization of relations with North Korea. But when he was working on those things, the rest of the world was kind of quiet. Russia was not invading Ukraine the Middle East was not burning to the ground. So I think it would be difficult to say that the first thing on the first national security meeting would be okay, let’s go back to visiting North Korea. I think that’s going to have to come later”
However, Senior Advisor Carafano said that it would be difficult to bring up renewed diplomacy with North Korea as a major agenda item in the early days of his inauguration as there are many major issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in the Middle East.
“Korea, a rich country”… Increase in defense spending suggests withdrawal of US troops in Korea
Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has made it clear since his first term in office that he focuses more on the economic aspect of the alliance rather than the security aspect.
In particular, with regard to the U.S.-Korea alliance, the issue of withdrawal of U.S. troops in Korea and increase in defense cost sharing was raised several times not only during his first term in office but also during the election campaign.
In an interview with Time magazine last April, President-elect Trump expressed his position by asking why Korea should be defended by U.S. troops since it is a “very wealthy country.”
He also said at the ‘Chicago Economic Club’ in October that if he were in office, Korea would pay $10 billion a year in defense cost sharing.
Integrated firepower training of the rotational brigade (3rd Cavalry Regiment) belonging to the US 2nd Infantry Division, a joint ROK-US division, held from July 22nd to August 3rd this year. = Provided by the 8th US Army in Korea.
“Our 40,000 soldiers (actually 28,500) are in very serious danger,” President-elect Trump said, “because North Korea’s nuclear forces are significant.”
[녹취: 트럼프 당선인] “If I were there now they’d be paying us 10 billion dollars a year and you know what they’d be happy to do it it’s a money machine, South Korea.”
He continued, “I said we had to pay to Korea, and they agreed to do so, but Biden reduced it,” adding, “If I were there now, they would pay us $10 billion a year.”
At the same time, he emphasized that Korea is a ‘money machine’, that is, a wealthy country.
In early October, ahead of the US presidential election, the US and Korea concluded the 12th Special Defense Cost-Sharing Agreement (SMA), which will apply from 2026 to 2030.
David Fields, vice director of the Institute for East Asian Studies at the State University of Wisconsin, said in a recent phone call with VOA that former President Trump based the Republican Party’s re-election project written by an American think tank on the idea that “South Korea must be allowed to take the lead in conventional defense against North Korea.” It was diagnosed that there is a possibility that the withdrawal of US troops from Korea could be used as a means to pressure renegotiation of defense spending with South Korea.
Then-US President Donald Trump and then-Korean President Moon Jae-in signing the agreement at the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signing ceremony at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in New York in September 2018.
On the other hand, there is also a prediction that the second term of the Trump administration will show a different approach to U.S.-ROK relations than the first term.
“It is clear that a second Trump administration will be more cooperative with our Asian allies because they are more cooperative,” James Carafano, senior advisor at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA.
[녹취:카라파노 선임고문] “Obviously it’s going to be more cooperative with its Asian allies because we have more cooperative Asian allies. We have I think a much more pro-American government in Korea we have a Japanese government which has really, I think gone out of its way to, to build stronger ties with South Korea and Taiwan.”
“South Korea has a government that is much more friendly to the United States, and the Japanese government is working to build stronger relationships with South Korea and Taiwan,” Carafano said. “They are much more willing partners to work with the United States.” “They are.”
This is Cho Eun-jeong of VOA News.