U.S. military says South Korean workers may be laid off amid row over costs

[soryang]

Hyonhee Shin
,Reuters•October 16, 2020

SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military will put nearly 9,000 South Korean workers on unpaid leave from April in the absence of an agreement on the sharing of costs of maintaining 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, it has told the government.

The allies are at odds over how much of the cost South Korea should shoulder to accommodate U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Negotiations have made little progress even after the previous deal, the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), expired at the end of 2019.

The workers, who are mostly employed at U.S. bases, were put on unpaid leave in April, which led to a temporary agreement in June to let South Korea fund some 4,000 of them....

more:

https://news.yahoo.com/u-military-says-south-korean-041741737.html

Congress had passed restrictions on reducing US troop levels in South Korea (FY 2020). But the press keeps emphasizing this implicit bargaining ploy by Esper and Trump to reduce US troop levels in South Korea. Further reductions in South Korean nationals employed by USFK will adversely impact the functionality of the command. The South has agreed to a 13 percent increase in funding while the US has reduced it's demand from a 400 percent increase to a 50 percent increase in the South Korean contribution to the SMA. It's evident that South Korea is just waiting for the Trump administration to go away.

[soryang]

1. Esper pretty much ignored the intent of Congress

expressed in current versions of the NDAA for 2021 already passed and the Oct 9 letter ( link below ) from democratic committee chairmen and ranking members in Congress. The white house has indicated that the NDAA won't be passed until after the election.


https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-releases?ID=7731B7E6-00B9-40A1-80F6-85F34C1C0827