Talk of US troop cuts in S. Korea criticized

WASHINGTON－The White House is weighing the possibility of reducing US troops on the Korean Peninsula. But the reported shift has drawn harsh criticism from inside US President Donald Trump's Republican Party, as well as from experts.

The United States media reported recently that the Pentagon had given the White House options for the possible reduction of the US troop presence in South Korea, amid a battle with Seoul in which Washington is demanding significantly more cash to keep US forces there.

A US military official told The Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon reviewed the deployment of 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, as part of a broader look at shifting deployments worldwide.

"It looks like Trump is serious," said Douglas Paal, vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that he believes the strategy is "disconnected and nonstrategic".

Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Washington-based nonprofit Korea Economic Institute, said that there are good reasons to consider a restructuring of US forces in South Korea. But in the absence of a vision for the future role for troops there, "It is difficult to view this as little more than the latest effort to extract concessions from South Korea on burden sharing.

"President (Donald) Trump has been clear that he does not value US alliances in the same way that prior presidents have," Stangarone said.

'Strategic incompetence'

The possible move was lambasted by lawmakers in Trump's own party, including Senator Ben Sasse, who labeled any such decision as "strategic incompetence".

In a related development, South Korea and the US are trying to agree on the scale, scope and timing of annual military exercises with the novel coronavirus threatening to disrupt the travel of US troops, South Korean officials said on Tuesday.

South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and US Defence Secretary Mark Esper had a telephone call on Tuesday but could not decide on details of the exercises, which usually begin in early August, officials said.

Jeong and Esper did not discuss any withdrawal of US troops, the South Korean official said, dismissing as "groundless" the recent media report of the possibility of reducing US troops in South Korea.

Xinhua - Agencies