Latest updates on US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy have indicated a fraying relationship with the two Koreas, including South Korea with which the US shares a long-standing alliance in the North East Asia region.
The US foreign relationship with South Korea started degrading after Washington demanded a $5 billion annual fee from South Korea to keep 28,500 US troops in South Korea to protect them from external forces. A huge jump from this year’s $923 million, an 8% increase on the previous year.
Ignoring Trump’s demand and threat to withdraw US troops from there, the defense ministers of South Korea and China on Sunday agreed to develop their security ties to ensure stability in north-east Asia, South Korea’s defense ministry said. The Ministry further added that Jeong Kyeong-doo, the South Korean minister of defense will visit China next year to “foster bilateral exchanges and cooperation in defense”.
The Korea Times’ Monday’s editorial page, referring to Trump’s demand as ‘Washington’s blatantly excessive demands’, wrote that it could be the potential cause to tear apart the security alliance between the two countries. Similarly, in the editorial page, Trump was accused of regarding the Korea-US mutual defense treaty “as a property deal to make money” referring to his threat to withdraw US troops from the region if his demands are not met.
On North Korea:
On Monday North Korea said that Trump had bragged to the world about their three unsuccessful summits which did not benefit North Korea to any extent. NK said that it no longer had any interest to hold the talks with the United States unless Washington comes up with new concessions in their nuclear negotiations.
Senior North Korean official Kim Kye Gwan, who is a former vice foreign minister, in a statement carried by the state KCNA news agency, said, “We no longer have interest in talks that have no benefit for us.”
“We will not give anything for the US president to brag about as we have received nothing in return, and we want to receive the benefits of the accomplishments that President Trump is crediting himself for,” Kye said.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held their first summit in Singapore in June last year to forward negotiations, but ended without any deal. The second summit in Vietnam ended abruptly without any progress in the negotiation.
Trump wants North Korea to dismantle its nuclear and missile programmes for its international sanctions to be lifted.