Dangerous message on South Korea

Reports Donald Trump is considering options to reduce the 28,500-strong US military deployment in South Korea may be “negotiating bluster” aimed at persuading Seoul to stump up more cash for its own defence. Even if that is the case, it would be hard to imagine anything more likely to echo around the world as a sign of US weakness at a dangerous time of rising tensions over Chinese aggression in our region. As The Wall Street Journal commented, the notion of even a partial US withdrawal from South Korea is “the President’s worst national security idea since he floated a Taliban visit to (the presidential retreat of) Camp David last year”. Republican senator Ben Sasse, from Nebraska, described it accurately as the “kind of strategic incompetence” that is “Jimmy Carter weak”.

Mr Trump has never hidden his determination that US allies should pay more for their own defence. Nor has he ever retreated from his declared intention to bring US forces home. Last month, one of his closest advisers, Richard Grenfell, reiterated the administration’s determination to return troops “from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, Japan and Germany”. With the presidential election little more than 100 days away, Mr Trump has ordered home thousands of troops from Afghanistan. He has also unnerved Western allies by ordering home 9500 of the 34,500 US troops stationed in Germany. Talks with South Korea over the $US1.3bn ($1.8bn) a year Mr Trump is demanding for troops stationed there are deadlocked. The Pentagon has reportedly presented him with tactical options on reducing the US presence of 28,500 troops, although administration officials say no decision has been made.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a powerful message last week about the “completely unlawful” behaviour of Beijing in the South China Sea. But a US retreat from South Korea, or even the suggestion of one, would be a gift to Chinese President Xi Jinping and unsettle other US allies, especially Japan and Taiwan. It would also undermine Mr Trump’s claim to be the leader the US needs to deal with China, as opposed to Joe Biden’s “weakness”.