The United States is stepping up the pressure on South Korea on two fronts, with senior Washington officials in Seoul for a series of meetings in which they are demanding that South Korea agree to extend an agreement on sharing military information as well as submitting to a sharply increased annual figure to keep US troops in the country.

So far, however, the government of President Moon Jae-in has given no indications that it is willing to concede on either point, with analysts concerned that President Donald Trump could lose patience with diplomacy and — as he has threatened in the past — simply withdraw US forces from South Korea. And that, they fear, would have a serious long-term impact on the security and prosperity of the whole of Northeast Asia.

Moon met with US Defense Secretary Mark Esper at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Friday afternoon, shortly after the US official held talks with his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Kyeong-doo. Esper reiterated Washington's position that South Korea should agree to extend the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a three-way data-sharing pact with the US and Japan, which runs out in November 23.

Read more: South Korea must pay more for US troop presence: Esper

Security pact to lapse

South Korea announced earlier this year that it would not sign an extension to the agreement unless Japan agreed to lift restrictions on exports of chemicals that are critical to the South's all-important microchip industry. Tokyo imposed the restrictions and took South Korea off its "white list" of most-favored trading partners after Korean courts ruled that former forced laborers from the years of Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula had the right to sue Japanese companies for compensation.

South Korea and US forces hold live-fire drill Border control South Korean Army soldiers rappel down during a South Korea-U.S. joint military live-fire drill at Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, South Korea, near the border with North Korea.

South Korea and US forces hold live-fire drill Dummy targets In Pocheon, 65 kilometers northeast of Seoul, South Korea’s self-propelled guns, as well as multiple rocket launchers, fired off dozens of volleys toward mock targets.

South Korea and US forces hold live-fire drill Stepping up preparation South Korean K1A2 tanks fire live rounds at a training field near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. Some 100 artillery pieces, 90 armoured vehicles and 50 aircraft, as well as 2,000 South Korean and US troops, the defence ministry said.

South Korea and US forces hold live-fire drill Missile defense The US has begun deploying parts of the controversial Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system at its site in South Korea. THAAD is designed to intercept and destroy short and medium-range ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight. The US and South Korea are deploying the missile system in response to the ongoing development of North Korea's ballistic missile program.

South Korea and US forces hold live-fire drill Saber-rattling in North Korea On the other side of the border in North Korea, leader Kim Jong-Un oversaw the country's largest-ever firing drill, which saw more than 300 large-calibre self-propelled guns firing simultaneously and torpedo attacks by submarines, state-run KCNA agency said.

South Korea and US forces hold live-fire drill Anniversary 'celebrations' The drill marked the 85th anniversary of the founding of the North Korea's armed forces, and heightened international worries that it may be preparing another nuclear test. Author: Nadine Berghausen



Tokyo insists that all compensation claims were settled under the 1965 treaty that saw the two nations normalize bilateral relations and saw Japan provide $500 million (€451 million) in compensation.

Unsurprisingly, the South Korean public is outraged at Japan's refusal to provide redress and no Korean politician can be seen to side with the former colonial overlord, so GSOMIA is likely to lapse — even though the biggest beneficiary of the agreement is South Korea and at a time when North Korea is returning to belligerence and more missile launches.

Cost of keeping troops

The US insists that Seoul pay a far larger amount to cover the costs associated with keeping 28,500 US troops in South Korea. President Trump has demanded that the figure rise from $5 billion (€4.52) a year from the $870 million (€786 million) that Seoul paid for calendar 2018. That deal runs out at the end of this year.

Read more: US and Asian nations launch 'Cobra Gold' military exercises

"It's extortion, pure and simple," said Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University. "Back in the 1980s, I argued that South Korea, NATO and other allies should do more to share the burden, but to raise the annual figure by that much is like a mob boss going around for protection money."

And the row comes at a delicate time politically in both the US and South Korea, he said. With impeachment hearings under way and an election looming, Trump cannot afford to back down on his "America first" mantra, Pinkston believes, while South Korea goes to the polls in April and growing public anger at Washington's demands means that no Korean politician will advocate paying a $5 billion (€4.52 billion) bill for the US military every year.

"I can't see Seoul caving in and paying that," he told DW. "They would rather the American troops leave and then spend that money on developing nuclear weapons themselves."

"There's already a growing sense here that you can't trust the Americans any more — people look at what happened with the Kurds and they know that Trump doesn't care what happens in countries like Korea," Pinkston underlined.

'Handshake for peace' – Trump crosses into North Korea Third Kim-Trump meeting It was the third meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in just over a year. The first Trump-Kim summit took place in Singapore in June last year. A meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, was held in February 2019. Both meetings failed to provide a clear roadmap for North Korea's denuclearization.

'Handshake for peace' – Trump crosses into North Korea Making history Trump made history on June 30 with his latest encounter with Kim. He's the first sitting US president to visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides South and North Korea. Trump briefly crossed into North Korea as he shook hands with Kim. He said he was "proud to step over the line."

'Handshake for peace' – Trump crosses into North Korea Watching over the North Prior to his meeting with Kim, Trump flew to the DMZ with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The US president met with South Korean and American troops as he watched over North Korea from a military post in the DMZ. US presidents in the past have visited American troops on the South Korean side but not set foot in the DMZ.

'Handshake for peace' – Trump crosses into North Korea 'Great friendship' From calling Kim Jong Un "little rocket man" to someone he has a "certain chemistry" with, Trump has come a long way in his dealing with North Korea. On June 30, he once again emphasized his personal ties with the North Korean dictator. Kim, too, hailed his "wonderful" relationship with Trump, saying the latest meeting would enable nuclear talks.

'Handshake for peace' – Trump crosses into North Korea 'In no rush' Washington and Pyongyang blame each other for the impasse over nuclear talks, but Trump is hopeful for a breakthrough. Although his previous two meetings with the North Korean leader didn't yield any result, Trump said he was "in no rush" to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

'Handshake for peace' – Trump crosses into North Korea Regime survival Experts have warned that North Korea may never agree to fully give up its nuclear ambitions, which they say Pyongyang views as vital for regime survival. In March, new satellite imagery suggested that North Korea started rebuilding a rocket launch site before Kim and Trump's Vietnam summit in Feruary. The site had been dismantled last year as part of Kim's denuclearization pledge. Author: Shamil Shams



"South Korea has the nuclear technology, it has the experts and it has the money, so developing their own nuclear deterrent would be fairly straightforward," he added. "But this is where it gets really dangerous. If the North sees the South building its own nuclear deterrent and the US has gone, then Pyongyang would have a very good incentive to attack."

Read more: Seoul: Trump pledges South Korea defense

High diplomatic stakes

Stephen Nagy, an associate professor of international relations at Tokyo's International Christian University, says Washington is ramping up the pressure in part because it wanted the GSOMIA pact to serve as the basis for a wider military intelligence sharing agreement "to counter the two primary security challenges in the region, namely North Korea and China."

And Nagy believes that the already considerable domestic discontent with Moon will inevitably grow as a result of the confrontation with the US.

"Recently, he has been losing support for his policies and his support rates are at record lows. Koreans know the importance of the bilateral alliance with the US, but they won’t agree to an increase of five times the cost of keeping the US troops there," Nagy told DW.

"That's going to come back on Moon, who they will see as having failed to handle the relationship well, on top of alienating the Japanese, causing economic problems at home and not stopping North Korea firing off 24 missiles so far this year already," he added.

"The stakes in these talks really are very high," Nagy said.

Read more: North Korea, US to resume nuclear talks after latest missile test