Contentious US-South Korea talks further clouded by virus

The complexity of the US-South Korea bilateral relationship is on full display amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Negotiating a new Special Measures Agreement (SMA) continues to be contentious, especially in the wake of last week’s general election in Korea. The impasse continues as both countries are battling the coronavirus, which has threatened their military readiness by delaying exercises, even as North Korea proceeds apace with missile tests.

The left-leaning governing party of South Korea won a landslide victory in last week’s election, giving President Moon Jae-in greater momentum to pursue a harder line with the US. South Koreans are angry with the Trump administration and a refrain often heard is “let my people go,” in reference to the perception of US forces and contracts for them in the country as being a form of abuse and victimization. 

There are serious concerns about the Trump administration not reaching a cost-sharing agreement with South Korea for US troops based there. In a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, four leading Democrats expressed their “disappointment that the administration has failed to conclude negotiations over an SMA between the United States and the Republic of Korea over four months after the expiration of the prior agreement.” The SMA (or burden-sharing agreement) is of critical importance in the US-Korea alliance as it keeps open the communications between the two countries in matters of security. It is often said in Washington that the US-Korean alliance is forged in the blood of shared sacrifice, and a healthy, strong and robust alliance with Seoul is the linchpin for US national security interests in the Indo-Pacific.

Money is at the heart of the matter. The SMA lapsed on Dec. 31 after President Donald Trump sought a South Korean contribution of about $5 billion, or 400 percent more than what it paid under the now-expired agreement. Both sides say the White House’s demands have since softened, but a new deal has yet to be reached. The demand is seen as extortion by the South Korean government and many of the country’s constituents.

At the beginning of April, the Trump administration hardened negotiations in the midst of the pandemic. The US military furloughed thousands of South Korean workers at its bases on the peninsula due to the lack of any agreement. At the time, South Korea offered to increase its SMA payment by 13 percent, but the US rejected the offer. The furloughs have not had as much impact on the bases as they might have, in part because Esper authorized the retention of essential South Korean workers tied to life, health, safety, and minimum readiness. The bases are also less active, given coronavirus-related closures, and thus the “drama” of the message from Seoul was not received by the Pentagon or the State Department.

It should be noted that Abraham Denmark, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said this was the first time furloughs had been used since the alliance was created in 1953, thus stunning observers. It is clear the Department of Defense is pushing for the transactional deal. Esper said last week: “South Korea is a close and trusted ally of ours, but they are a wealthy country.” That type of language doesn’t play well with South Korean traditions.

The US-South Korean dispute risks damaging the alliance. There are 28,500 American troops deployed in South Korea, in what is seen as a deterrent to Pyongyang that also sends a message to China about US influence and capability in Asia. Trump’s view that wealthy South Korea, which has an economy larger than Australia’s, is taking advantage of the US is increasingly being met in Seoul by a perception that Washington has become a transactional partner with unreasonable demands.

What was meant to be the final phase of negotiations in mid-March came as the US imposed dramatic travel restrictions over the coronavirus, which made all but the most essential engagements off-limits. Seoul’s trump card in the negotiations is the country’s anti-COVID-19 model for containing the pandemic, and making test kits available to the US. Naturally, such an offer is seen as a transaction, and not an immediate need, because of perceptions that the kits may be inaccurate. With hundreds of thousands of South Korean test kits on the verge of arriving in the US, there is confusion over their destination and reliability. This type of playing of games with pathogen technology is poor judgment by both sides due to the time element involved in the distribution of test kits and the need to meet urgent US COVID-19 testing requirements.

Overall, the US-South Korea relationship does not need the added condition of transactional pressure during a pandemic. As stated in a previous analysis of the bilateral relations between the US and South Korea, Seoul is looking for respect and not a robbery. In the wake of the South Korean election, Seoul will harden its position because of anti-American resentment. That factor raises questions about the US and South Korea’s conflation of COVID-19 requirements with serious mutual defense obligations in a dangerous neighborhood.

• Dr. Theodore Karasik is a senior adviser to Gulf State Analytics in Washington, D.C. He is a former RAND Corporation Senior Political Scientist who lived in the UAE for 10 years, focusing on security issues. Twitter: @tkarasik