Donald Trump says the United States should pressure its allies, including South Korea and Japan, to bear one-hundred percent of the cost of the American troop presence.
Now that Trump is considered the Republican Party's presumptive nominee... it's a most worriesome idea for Seoul.
Kim Ji-yeon looks into the feasibility of this drastic policy.
Donald Trump, the de-facto Republican presidential nominee,... says South Korea should pay for all costs related to the U.S. troop presence in the country.
He has made similar comments before, but this marks the first time Trump has called for U.S. allies, including Japan and Germany,... to shoulder ALL the expenses.
In an interview with CNN, Trump said "Of course they should pick up all the expense. Why are we paying for this?"
When the interviewer mentioned that Seoul already pays half of the cost to keep U.S. troops on the peninsula,... which amounted to over eight-hundred million U.S. dollars last year alone,... he said, "Why not a 100-percent?"
The billionaire businessman goes on to say that the U.S. should even be "prepared to walk," referring to withdrawing troops,... unless Seoul pays more.
He said, "If they don't take care of us properly, if they don't respect us enough to take care of us properly, then ... they're going to have to defend themselves."
There are roughly 28-thousand American troops stationed on the peninsula as a deterrent to North Korean aggression, a legacy of the Korean War.
Despite Trump's rhetoric,... a local expert says there wouldn't be a complete abandonment of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and their military capability in the region... if Trump became president.
"Even if South Korea doesn't measure up to Trump's standards in the sharing of defense costs, it won't trigger an automatic U.S. troop withdrawal. And even if that were to happen, the U.S. would come up with other cost-effective means,... such as increasing the combat capability of U.S. air and naval forces."
It's hard to tell how
