South Korea Agree on 5-Year Plan to Share Defense Costs

The United States and South Korea on Friday agreed on a new five-year plan on sharing the cost of keeping American troops in South Korea, South Korea's foreign ministry and the U.S. Department of Statement said.

For 2026, the nations agreed to raise defense cost by 8.3% to 1.52 trillion won ($1.13 billion), South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Seoul and Washington launched the talks earlier than usual in what was seen as a bid to conclude the negotiations before the U.S. election in November.

Lee Tae-woo, South Korea's chief negotiator, and Linda Specht, the top U.S. negotiator for talks on defense cost sharing with Korea, finalized the new deal after eight rounds of talks that began in April, held just before the existing deals were due to expire next year.

Some 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea as part of efforts to deter nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korea began shouldering the costs of U.S. deployments, used to fund local labor, the construction of military installations and other logistics support, in the early 1990s.

During his presidency, Republican nominee Donald Trump criticized South Korea, a key U.S. ally, for not contributing enough to defense costs and called for it to pay up to $5 billion annually for the U.S. military presence.

Negotiations between the two countries continued for months, and under President Joe Biden, they reached an agreement for South Korea to raise its contribution by 13.9%, the largest increase in nearly two decades.

The cost sharing rise for 2026 compares with the average annual increase of 6.2% for the past five years, to factor in higher maintenance costs and additional local staff, Seoul's foreign ministry said.

For 2027~2030, they agreed to use the Consumer Price Index as a reference and work to make sure the annual increase does not exceed 5%, it said. ($1 = 1,339.6400 won) 

Newsmax's Zoe Papadakis contributed to this report.