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| Donald Trump (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By John Power
The Republican presidential candidate accuses South Korea of free-riding on the U.S. military.
U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to have taken aim at South Korea over its heavy reliance on the American military for its defense. While campaigning in South Carolina on Tuesday, the bombastic Republican contender seemed to suggest that South Korea, as a wealthy country in its own right, doesn’t deserve U.S. protection, reported Yonhap News.
Trump, who has repeatedly made headlines with provocative comments in recent weeks, had been rallying against Washington’s defense commitment to Saudi Arabia when he mentioned South Korea, only to be cut off by a member of the audience. While Trump did not expand on his opinion of South Korea, he has previously blasted the defense pact it shares with the United States, which sees some 28,500 American soldiers stationed in the country.
“How long will we go on defending South Korea from North Korea without payment?” Trump complains in a video uploaded on his YouTube channel in 2013.
“When will they start to pay us?” he adds a little later.
In fact, “they” already do pay– albeit only a portion of the full cost. Last year, the Seoul government was liable for $861 million of the cost of maintaining the U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula. That figure, however, accounted for less than half of the full cost.
While Trump is wrong on the specifics, his complaint nevertheless touches on longstanding discontent over the situation in some U.S. circles.
Read the full story at The Diplomat