2024-04-23 01:01:50
There is consensus between South Korea and the United States for an early settlement.
The first concrete negotiations
The governments of South Korea and the United States will hold their first meeting in Hawaii this week to conclude the 12th Special Defense Cost-Sharing Agreement (SMA), which will take effect from 2026. The two countries, which appointed negotiators side by side early last month, have completed the formation of delegations in about a month and are entering full-scale negotiations. Both the South Korean and U.S. governments have a consensus on reaching an early negotiation conclusion, but as this is the first time concrete negotiations have taken place, both sides are expected to engage in a fierce exploratory battle at this meeting.
According to government sources on the 22nd, the ROK-US SMA delegation is expected to exchange the two sides’ positions on defense cost sharing in Hawaii this week and hold comprehensive discussions, including schedules and future negotiation plans. The source said, “I understand that both sides will present the amount of contribution they each want in conjunction with the first meeting.” The SMA is an agreement that determines the amount that Korea will bear in terms of labor costs, military construction costs, and logistics support costs for the stable stationing of US troops in Korea. After the negotiator was appointed, it was reported that, unlike the Korean government, the formation of the U.S. delegation was somewhat delayed.
Normally, SMA negotiations begin about a year before the expiration of the deadline, but with nearly two years left until the expiration date, the U.S. first proposed early negotiations, and South Korea responded favorably, leading to the early start of negotiations. The first meeting will be held 1 year and 8 months before the end of negotiations. Accordingly, there was an interpretation that the two countries were taking preemptive measures to prevent SMA negotiations from being affected by political issues ahead of the US presidential election in November, leading to negative news for the alliance or prolonging the gap in the agreement.
It is also of interest whether our government will achieve a single-digit, rather than double-digit, increase in defense spending in this SMA negotiation. A government source said, “The level of increase proposed by the U.S. at the first meeting will determine future SMA negotiations.” Although it is not at the level of the Donald Trump administration, which pressed for a 5-fold increase in contributions, the Joe Biden administration also achieved a 13% increase in the first year through the 11th SMA negotiations in 2021, and at the time, the US policy was that the rate of increase in defense spending should be linked to the rate of increase in our defense budget. There is a history of adhering to . At that time, it was the first time in 19 years since 2002 (25.7%) that the defense cost increase rate rose to double digits.
Reporter Shin Gyu-jin [email protected]
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2024-04-23 01:01:50