South Korea will not pay $5 billion for US protection.

[ZenOps]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-trump-demands

Trump has demanded South Korea contribute about $5 billion for hosting U.S. troops, well above the current one-year deal where Seoul pays about $1 billion.

Raising prices five fold, that's going to go over well.

[ZenOps]

BTW: I always found it strange that South Korea paid the USA. If it was a Trump hotel in South Korea, you would be charging the USA visitors per night fees - regardless whether they brought a Ford pinto or a M1A1 tank to put in the parking lot.

So by my estimation, South Korea should be charging the USA $500 million to keep its bases and military reject soldiers in South Korea.

Just a thought, All your base are belong to us.

[eblend]

They also asked Japan to increase from 2 to 8 billion....fuck if it was me I would tell them fuck you, you get nothing and get your troops out of here. US uses these places to have presence in the region to expand it's influence, they don't want to lose the bases, so all they are hoping for is they fold and pay up, instead of telling them to pound sand. They want their cake and eat it too.

[spikerS]

I think it is more along the lines of SK pays the USA to have a military presence there to keep NK in check and to enforce the demilitarized zone.

As far as Japan goes, IIRC, it goes back to the surrender of Japan in WWII and the provision that Japan was not allowed to have a standing military, and in return, the USA would keep a force there for protection from China and NK. To this day, Japan does not have a "Military" per say, but rather the Japanese Defence Force or something that is not allowed to be aggressive in nature, however, I think that has changed some in the past decade or so as the JDF has been practicing offensive maneuver drills with the USA, SK, and other allies.

[ZenOps]

Ever since Trump shook the hand of Kim Jong - I don't know that South Korea should really be paying the USA anything. For that matter - there would have to be a considerable amount of trust to think that the USA wouldn't just switch sides (like they have done in several conflicts)

I've said before, its foolish of the South Korean people to think that they are anything more to America than overseas Mexicans.

If you want to pay the USA to invade yourself, well - it's a reason. Patriotism is dead, but even I think that's pretty brutal to fund those that have friendly (or neutral) relations with direct enemies.

Although, Obama shook hands with Khadafi, and we all know what happened to Khadafi.