April 11, 2025
SEOUL – Most countries breathed a sigh of relief after Washington’s surprise 90-day pause on the Trump administration’s “reciprocal” tariffs just hours after they took effect. Despite the temporary drop in US tariffs on Korean goods from 25 percent to 10 percent, South Korea now faces a new concern as US President Donald Trump hints that defense cost-sharing could come up in tariff talks.
Claiming that South Korea — one of the 56 nations along with European Union countries for whom the US paused tariffs until July — does not pay “much” for the US troops stationed there, Trump hinted that he will make renegotiation of defense cost-sharing “part of” the deal over the “reciprocal” 25-percent tariff against South Korea.
“It would be one of the things we discussed that’s unrelated to trade, but I think we’ll make it part of (the trade talks) because it makes sense,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
Even before his inauguration, Trump denounced the cost-sharing deal struck between Washington and South Korea in October, under which Seoul is to pay 1.52 trillion won ($1.04 billion) in 2026, up from 1.4 trillion won this year. Starting 2027, the annual growth of South Korea’s contribution will be tied to the increase in South Korea’s consumer price index. The deal — signed when former US President Joe Biden was in office — will be effective until 2030.
“It’d be nice to wrap it all up in one package for each country,” Trump said.
This aligns with his earlier remarks that the US could strike tailored deals by introducing non-trade issues as bargaining chips in tariff negotiations. Trump described the process as “one stop shopping,” meant to reach a new tariff deal through nontrade concessions, he wrote on his Truth Social platform after a discussion on the phone with acting President Han Duck-soo Tuesday.
A senior official of the Prime Minister’s Office, however, said that Seoul was not seeking a package deal that would encompass tariffs and costs related to the stationing of some 28,000 US troops in Korea. The same official said the matter of defense cost-sharing was discussed during the 28-minute phone call between Han and Trump.
The potential renegotiation of defense cost-sharing comes as South Korea undergoes a power transition, with an early presidential election scheduled for June 3 — just weeks before the 90-day pause on US tariffs expires. While some suggest the issue may be handed off to the next administration, others raise the possibility of the acting president making a bold visit to Washington before the new leadership takes office.
No matter which candidate wins the election, South Korea will likely have little choice but to accept a significant increase in the cost of hosting US troops, an expert said.
“Regardless of whoever comes to power, a conservative or a liberal, … it will not be easy to draw a qualitatively different conclusion,” said Chung Ku-youn, professor of political science at Kangwon National University.
“Now, even if a liberal government were to come to power, I wonder if we could really reduce the degree of the US defense cost-sharing to the level we want.”
Chung warned that Seoul is running out of time to address the defense cost-sharing issue, stressing that now is the time to prepare a negotiation strategy rather than wait for a new administration.
“It appears the US sees Prime Minister Han as its negotiation counterpart,” Chung said, referring to the acting president whose term concludes after the vote count ends on June 4. “If that’s the case, Seoul has little room left to delay talks on tariffs.”