U.S. and South Korea Gear Up for Burden-Sharing Talks

The outcome of a U.S.–South Korea defense negotiation could transform America’s global footprint. In fixating on numbers and dramatically rethinking America’s military footprint abroad, it’s possible Trump will succeed in obtaining more money from resistant allies than his predecessors did. But “the concern about the Trump presidency is that he’s destabilizing the liberal international order and making us question whether the U.S. will be here for a long time,” says Park Cheol-hee, an East Asia scholar at Seoul National University. “We question, question, question.” Hence why there has recently been a flurry of bipartisan activity in the U.S. Congress to construct various (not insurmountable) hurdles to Trump exiting NATO and pulling U.S. troops out of several countries, including South Korea.