President Trump was nonchalant about four North Korean missile tests. But he turned to South Korea and chided Seoul on Twitter. He said that South Korea pays “virtually nothing”, for US Protection. His frustration comes from the fact that South Korea does nothing to contain Pyongyang’s increased aggression.
He said- “We have been helping them for about 82 years and we get nothing, we get virtually nothing. They’ve agreed to pay a lot more and they will agree to pay a lot more than that.”
While North Korea became more aggressive with its missile launches, Trump wants South Korea to contain them. Or else US supports them for nothing. With its aggressive missile launches, Seoul is widening the gap between US and North Korea.
Many condemn Trump’s attitude because it’s an alliance and not about profit. Bruce Klingner, who is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation said- “The US-South Korea alliance was forged in blood during the crucible of the Korean War. Its enduring motto is Katchi Kapshida, which means we go together not we go together, if we are paid enough.”
Vipin Narang who is a political science professor at MIT, said “ 2019 is weird. The President has more respect for Kim Jong Un than he does for South Korea…. Our Formal ally.”
President Trump tweeted on how South Korea pays US very little for its protection. And he also made a public statement of how much money South Korea paid to have US protection. He mentioned that South Korea paid a whooping $990,000,000 to US.
On one hand where US took the missile testing lightly, UK seems deeply concerned by it. A foreign office spokesman said that the launches are a “clear breach of UN security council resolutions and pose a grave threat to our regional partners and global security.”
Even though the missiles are very impressive, US downplaying it suggests it could care less about North Korea’s feeble attempts.