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CNN —
President Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to rewrite the history of US relations with South Korea.
Trump has repeatedly delivered false assertions about the payments South Korea has made for decades to help cover the cost of the major US military presence in the country (more than 26,000 personnel as of the end of 2024). On Tuesday, he wrote on social media that he had just spoken with South Korean acting President Han Duck-soo about economic issues and about “payment for the big time Military Protection we provide to South Korea.”
Trump then added this: “They began these Military payments during my first term, Billions of Dollars, but Sleepy Joe Biden, for reasons unknown, terminated the deal. That was a shocker to all!”
Trump’s claim is false in two big ways.
First, South Korea’s payments did not begin during Trump’s first term. The cost-sharing deals known as Special Measures Agreements began in 1991, more than 25 years before Trump took office in 2017.
Second, former President Joe Biden did not terminate a Trump cost-sharing agreement with South Korea. The only Special Measures Agreement signed by the Trump administration had expired by the time Biden took office in 2021 – and Biden’s administration then signed two such agreements, one in 2021 and one in 2024, that both included South Korean spending increases.
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